Kara, “look I’m engaged!” DioGuardi, on 1/13/09. Credit: WENN

New judge Kara DioGuardi talked to the man who thought it was a good idea to high five a blind guy, Ryan Seacrest, on his show yesterday. They discussed snotty bikini-wearing contestant Katrina Darrell, now known around the world as “Bikini Girl.” Kara basically said that Bikini Girl was a butterface, but she made it sound a little nicer than that. You can tell that Kara hasn’t changed her ways and is still annoyed after the incident, in which she re-sang the contestants song and got offended when she was told she didn’t sing it any better:

“I love pretty girls,” she said on Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM radio show Wednesday. “The thing with bikini girl — to be honest, I thought she had a better body than she had a better face.”

The two got into a heated spat after Darrell sang Mariah Carey’s “Vision of Love.” Judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson sent her through, but DioGuardi said she didn’t think Darrell had “swing.” So DioGuardi re-sang the song for Darrell, telling her how she should have done it. Darrell then snapped, “your demonstration wasn’t any better.”

Former Idol contestants share their wedding pics — and photos of their children!

“To her credit, she’s gotten so much attention. It was probably a good call to wear the bikini at the end of the day,” DioGuardi told Seacrest. “But we wouldn’t be talking about the bikini if she killed the song.”

Asked by Seacrest if she’d send through a “pretty” girl before a “cute” girl, DioGuardi said, “It’s hard to say. But pretty and cute … they’re important. It’s a visual medium. You’re going to see people on the covers and in the press.

“Of course, I want a pretty girl,” she said, “but I’m not just looking for a pretty girl; I’m looking for an incredible voice, great stage presence. I’m a big champion of women. I’m not the kind of woman who’s going to drag a woman down.”

[From US Magazine]

My opinion of Kara didn’t change after watching last night’s episode from Kansas City. Kara may say superficially nice things to the contestants, but she’s not a down to earth person like Paula and there’s no heart in it. She uses “sweetie” and other terms of endearment as a way to couch criticism and subtly put people down, and she just sounds insincere. Maybe that’s why she didn’t like bikini girl – she saw another woman with an attitude and got competitive. There are all sorts of ways she could have handled that incident better if she didn’t agree with the male judges, like telling them to close their eyes while the contestant sang. Instead she took it personally, came off as petty, and is now defending herself. American Idol could have done much better choosing a judge. They resort to mocking special people in every audition episode so I guess we can’t expect class and professionalism from their panel, either.

Bikini girl video

American Idol’s eighth season had its two hour premiere on Fox last night with auditions from Phoenix. It featured new judge Kara DioGuardi as the fourth addition to the panel. The show was the same formula we’re used to and it was entertaining if a bit slow in parts. I found singer songwriter DioGuardi a little underwhelming. She fit in unobtrusively, which is probably what they were going for, but I couldn’t get a clear read on her personality. She was nice like Paula but without the sincerity. I found myself fixated on her bad hair extensions and wondering if she thought they looked ok.

Kara’s mini feud with “bikini girl”
At one point DioGuardi insisted on singing the same song, “Treated Me Kind,” “Vision of Love” as a much-talked about contestant dressed in a bikini, showing that she should put some swing in it and looking surprisingly competitive. It seemed kind of immature and aggressive coming from a grown woman and the audition went downhill from there. Paula got up to defend DioGuardi when the skinny contestant insisted she sang it better. The girl could sing pretty well but I just couldn’t get over the ferret faces she was making along with her attitude. Randy and Simon voted her through despite Paula and Kara’s objections.

Kara’s would-be stalker
Given the tragic suicide of a stalker outside Paula Abdul’s house, producers should be wary of letting anyone audition who seems unstable and is fixated on one of the judges. There was a young girl dressed in a cowboy hat and short skirt who said she was a huge fan of Kara’s. She brought in a big binder full of songs she wrote and went on at length about how she wanted a singing career. The girl couldn’t sing and was wacky to say the least. These auditions were taped before Paula’s “fan” committed suicide, but it seemed thoughtless that the scenes featuring that contestant were included. Producers should have learned their lesson after letting Paula’s stalker through. Maybe this girl was harmless, but those type of contestants shouldn’t be encouraged.

Other highlights of the show included a super deep-voiced guy, an intelligent nerdy guy who could sing that Simon didn’t want to get through for some reason, an effeminate guy with a surprisingly good voice, and a guy with a misspelled “Sexual Chocolate” tattoo on his back. There was also a rockabilly chick with incredible talent, and a blond woman who came to the auditions alone and had a strong unique voice with a warble. A bubbly normal-looking contestant who sang just as well as the bikini girl, in my opinion, was told by Simon that she must have been let through based on her personality. She ultimately got a pass to the next round after a tense few moments.

The night ended with a somewhat inspiring tale of a blind guy who taught himself music. The way that contestant was hyped seemed kind of hackneyed, but that’s how Idol does it. The guy was a talented singer, but he picked the slow Billy Joel song, “And So it Goes” and you couldn’t really tell from that single sample if he had enough chops to make it through. He was given a golden ticket and made it to Hollywood, though.

American Idol continues tonight with another two hour audition special. We’ll be watching, even as we roll our eyes like Simon.

Simon Cowell’s public statements show that sexual harassment in entertainment isn’t confined to the boardroom or set. He made an obnoxious comment meant to be funny that he initiated the new American Idol judge, attractive songwriter Kara DioGuardi, 37, with a pajama party that included negligees for “the girls,” which presumably also means his coworker Paula Abdul, 46.

“It’s already a big happy family,” Abdul said Tuesday at the American Idol season 8 auditions held in New York. “We are so happy to have her.”

In fact, DioGuardi has already had quality bonding time with all three judges, says Simon Cowell. “We had a picnic last night. I wore jammies and the girls wore negligees and we kind of broke the ice,” Cowell joked. “We had cake until two in the morning.”

Joking aside, DioGuardi says the judges have welcomed her with open arms–yes, even Simon. “You were nice to me,” DioGuardi said to Cowell on the red carpet about their initial meeting. “You were actually OK.”

[From People]

That was a throwaway comment that Simon meant as a joke, but those are the type of jokes that intimidate and tell “girls” where their place is at work and in Hollywood – even if Simon didn’t consciously mean anything by it. It figures that Simon would say something like that, and it’s pretty telling that big dawg Randy Jackson didn’t make an appearance in his fantasy meet and greet with the new judge.

DioGuardi is largely considered to be a sane counterbalance to Paula Abdul’s often slurry, sometimes incoherent comments on the judges’ panel. Abdul says she’s thrilled to have her, though, and that there is no competition there.

“It’s about time another girl joined,” Abdul told PEOPLE Monday at the U.S. Open opening night celebration in Flushing, N.Y. “More girl power.”

Abdul, 46, who has been an Idol judge for the past seven seasons, says DioGuardi’s songwriter and producer experience will bring a different mix to the table. “She’s going to be a little more different and more from the industry standpoint.”

This isn’t the first time the pop singer has worked with DioGuardi. The two wrote a song for Kylie Minogue called “Spinning Around.”

Despite initial reports of a dustup after Abdul told a Phoeniz, Ariz., radio station Monday, “I am concerned about the audience and their acceptance … time will tell,” both Abdul and DioGuardi say there are no hard feelings.

“Anybody with the right brain would say something like that,” DioGuardi told reporters yesterday.

But will adding another female judge take the spotlight away from Abdul? “No,” says the singer. “This is great for the show. I’ve been waiting for this. I really have and people will love her. She’s great!”

[From People]

Now that Simon is all focused on getting DioGuardi naked he’ll stop bugging the crap out of Paula while they’re shooting Idol. She probably considers another woman a buffer from Simon’s obnoxious taunting. No wonder she’s so happy to welcome her on.

Here are photos of AI introducing Kara DioGuardi at NYC tryouts at Chelsea Piers yesterday. Ryan Seacrest and Cowell’s hapless girlfriend, Terri Seymour, are also shown.

Credit: Janet Mayer / PR Photos