Didi Benami spoke with USA Today after being voted off Wednesday night’s ‘American Idol’, where the singer discussed that moment with Ryan Seacrest after her performance of ‘What Becomes of the Brokenhearted’. Asked about the ‘Idol’ host pressing her on why she was getting choked up singing the song, Diddi said, “I was trying to convey a message through the song, not through somebody asking me why I was singing it. It was an uncomfortable question.”

While Didi didn’t mention her name, she thought most people who watch the show probably knew she was singing about Rebecca Lear, Didi’s roommate at Nashville’s Belmont University, who died in a car wreck on her way home for Christmas break after their first semester there. Read more.

Update: Didi told EW.com about the incident:

It was tough, and it was uncomfortable Tuesday night. I think that I reacted in a way that I should have. I didn’t want to talk about it. Bottom line. I wanted to get it over with and go, you know? It was tough. It was hard and there was nothing I could do to change what he said. So, it sucked.

Ellen DeGeneres answered viewer questions about ‘American Idol’ on her show, including why she thinks Kara Dioguardi sits so close to Simon Cowell, where Ryan Seacrest goes when the contestants are performing, how ‘Idol’ is more than she expected, and how filming her show is different than ‘Idol’. “I know that [Ryan] introduces them and he kind of disappears behind the wall, I hear a lot of noise happening, I don’t know what’s happening,” Ellen joked about the busy host. “I think he’s going over prompter, because he reads a lot of stuff, he has to do the text numbers and stuff, and I think he’s preparing for the next thing, but then he drives the judges home at the end of the night. You never know who’s going to go home first because he’ll say, ‘Ellen, I’m going to take you home… right after I drop Simon off.”

Video at AmericanIdol.com has since been removed.

Still No Word On Whether Crystal Bowersox Will Make Tonight’s ‘American Idol’

March 3, 2010 - ‘American Idol’ executive producer Ken Warwick appeared on Ryan Seacrest’s morning radio show at KIIS FM studios in Los Angeles, where he talked about the sudden illness Crystal Bowersox was hit with. Warwick said that Bowersox had “a condition that we know about” but did not say what the condition was. If she doesn’t make it for tonight’s show, and moments ago MSNBC’s Courtney Hazlett tweeted that there is still no word if she’ll be able to compete. “If you’re in the Olympics, and you’re going for the semifinal, for the final, if you don’t turn up, you don’t get straight through to the final,” Warwick said when asked if her absence would mean she’d be eliminated. Watch the interview below.

Update: Ryan Seacrest just told his Twitter followers (@RyanSeacrest):

Yes she is performing.. live in 10 min RT @Karen445: @RyanSeacrest Is crystal performing tonight or not ? Please tell her fans something

Simon Cowell: Howard Stern Should Replace Me On ‘American Idol’

March 2, 2010 - Paparazzi caught Simon Cowell out with his fiance Mezhgan Hussainy in Los Angeles, where the ‘American Idol’ judge was asked who should replace him when he ends his run on the hit FOX show this spring. Cowell told the paps, “Howard Stern”, but was silent when Perez Hilton, who has been heavily lobbying for the job, was brought up. The comment may be interpreted as a diss by his fellow judges Ellen DeGeneres and Kara Dioguardi, since Stern has said he wouldn’t take the job unless they were to go. Watch Hollywood.tv footage below.