Fan Fare

Is Steven Tyler right fit for “American Idol”?

Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler looks to be on his way to join “American Idol” in what would be the first bona fide rock star judge on the show’s panel.

But is Tyler, 62, the right fit for a show aimed squarely at middle America? And if Tyler is in place, as widely reported, can the “Idol” judging panel carry a second major artist if rumors about country star Shania Twain, or Jennifer Lopez, or even Jessica Simpson turn out to be correct?

Tyler may be a rock god, but does he have anything useful, or witty, or coherent, to say to the aspiring “American Idols”?

And rock stars usually bring plenty of baggage after decades on the road — in Tyler’s case a history of prescription drug addiction,  drama, and an uncanny ability to fall off the stage.

How long would Tyler sign up to be on “Idol”? And would his new job mean another long hiatus (or even  the end) of touring and new albums for Aerosmith?

One thing is clear. Paula Abdul he is not. Nor Ellen. And if there’s one person who can withstand all the expected negative comparisons to Simon Cowell, it’s probably Tyler.

Tyler may be ready for “American Idol” but is America ready for Steven Tyler on prime-time TV twice a week for five months?

Billy Corgan smashes John Mayer, describes a career burnout in progress

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan knows about dropping out of the limelight, or as he says it, how to “burn” down a career. The 1990s superstar faded from view in recent years, coincidentally just as “Gravity” singer John Mayer was seeing his own career gain steam.

Now, in light of Mayer’s recent misstep in his Playboy magazine interview, Corgan is warning that his fellow rock singer is on a bad path.

“He’s trying to destroy his career,” Corgan tells Rolling Stone, in an outtake posted on Thursday from an interview profile the magazine ran this month.

“Rather than take a year off or change his musical direction … some part of it is irritating his soul to the point where he’s trying to blow it up,” Corgan told the magazine. “Certainly a talented guy, but empathetically, standing on the sidelines, it’s hard to watch someone literally burn their career to the ground — speaking as somebody who’s done it.”

As of Thursday afternoon, Mayer had yet to respond to Corgan’s comment on the social networking website Twitter, where the rock and blues singer generally comments about all things big and small.

Mayer used the “N” word in the Playboy interview that ran last month, and said that he has an aversion to sleeping with black women because, as he said, his penis is “sort of like a white supremacist.”

He apologized for the comments that many viewed as racist. In the same interview, he also described former flame Jessica Simpson, the actress and country singer, as “sexual napalm.” As it happens, Corgan is good friends with Simpson, and he didn’t take kindly to those comments.

John Mayer apologizes again. But is it enough?

Some people may have heard enough from “Gravity” singer John Mayer this week after his expletive-filled Playboy magazine interview and  his (too much information! )  musings on black women, pornography,  ex-lovers Jessica Simpson and  Jennifer Aniston,  as well as  dropping the “N” word bomb.

It seems Mayer agrees with them.  After issuing an apology via Twitter, Mayer broke down on stage towards the end of his concert in Nashville on Wednesday telling fans he had fallen into a “wormhole of selfishness, greediness and arrogance”  in his quest to “be clever” and that he now wanted to get back to just being a musician.

“I quit the media game. I’m out. I’m done,” a choked-up Mayer told the audience in Nashville in footage now posted  on YouTube.  “I just want to play my guitar.”

By all accounts, it was an emotional ending to the concert and even had some of Mayer’s  band choking up. According to one fan at the show, one of Mayer’s black female back-up singers was crying as Mayer praised his band for standing by him  “because they support myself as a possible future grown-up.” .

But just like the Playboy interview, Mayer’s remorse has  split opinions between those who believe it’s either insincere and a further effort to seek attention, and those who think the whole thing has been blown out of proportion and who remain firm fans.

“It was a deep an honest apology, everyone felt it and there were few dry eyes. The man has always had a way with words,” wrote Molly, who was at the concert, on entertainment web site E! online.

But Melanie, who was not at the Nashville show, said in a comment  on the E! site;  “The dude is a major idiot with major issues. Maybe he should take some time off. He obviously has issues to work out. He is so needy for attention that it’s sad and now he has become offensive!.”

Jessica Simpson wants dog back from wily coyote

Singer and actress Jessica Simpson  wants to see her dog again, and she doesn’t care what people think about her campaign to get the pooch back, after she saw a coyote make off with the animal.

This star-search drama comes courtesy of social networking website Twitter, where Simpson posted a missing poster on Monday with a picture of the small, caramel-colored dog.

“My heart is broken because a coyote took my precious Daisy right in front of our eyes. HORROR! We are searching. Hoping. Please help!” Simpson wrote on the page.

And on Wednesday came another Twitter message from Simpson, this one bearing all the fighting tenacity of a pitbull in a prize match. It seems some folks have been critical of Simpson’s public plea to find Daisy, a fact that evidently upset Simpson.

“Still holding out hope despite the (jerks) that say is it a dumb thing to do. Daisy is my baby… why would I stop searching? I’m a mom,” Simpson wrote, apparently meaning by the word “mom” that she loves her pet like a mom, a la Leona Helmsley. 

Unfortunately for Simpson, these things don’t often end well when a coyote makes off with a live creature. At its most tragic end, coyotes can kill small children.

One of the most famous cases involved the 1980 disappearance of a baby named Azaria Chamberlain in Australia. Her parents said that Azaria was taken by a dingo, which is a wild dog similar to a coyote, when the family was camping, but the authorities did not believe them and the girl’s mother, Lindy, spent three years in prison. When a new investigation backed up Lindy’s dingo claim, she was freed.

Jessica Simpson’s country foray is over

Nashville is saying “No” to Jessica Simpson, the tabloid starlet who evinced a few snickers by releasing a country album last year.

“Do You Know” sold just 178,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, lower than the pop singer’s previous release, the 2006 disappointment “A Public Affair,” which stalled at 300,000 copies.

So now Simpson is no longer aligned with Sony Music Nashville, according to her publicist, with one major caveat. “She was on loan to Sony Nashville for her country album,” the publicist said in an email.

She remains on the roster of Sony Corp. sister label Epic Records. There was no word on any upcoming recording plans. Simpson toured earlier this year as an opening act for country trio Rascal Flatts, but whipped up some minor media-storms by gaining weight and forgetting lyrics.

Simpson has sold 6.8 million copies of her six albums in the United States, led by 2.9 million for 2003′s “In This Skin.” Her younger sister, Ashlee, has sold 4.1 million copies of her three albums, including 126,000 for her latest outing “Bittersweet World,” also released last year.

Jessica Alba: It’s a girdle thing

(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

When “The Love Guru” star Jessica Alba looked slim and attractive shortly after giving birth to her first child in June, the celebrity news world took note. Now it will have to take note again, because Alba has revealed the secret: a girdle.      In a world where average women feel at pains to compete with the killer workout regimens of celebrities, Alba has lifted the curtain on body-image in a way that few celebrities have.      “I wore a girdle,” Alba told Elle magazine for its March issue, when asked about how she looked slim after childbirth.    “Eight weeks after my girlfriend had her baby, you could see her six-pack,” Alba said. “She told me to put an elastic band around my waist — any kind of band or girdle works. She was like, ‘I slept in it.’ I didn’t recover as fast as she did. I don’t have a six-pack — that’s just not my body at all.”       Alba, 27, also talked about working out for a photo shoot for Club Campari’s annual calendar.      The workouts “were horrible,” she told Elle. “I cried. And I haven’t worked out since.”      And in other celebrity diet news (ahem, if one could call it that), last week, singer Jessica Simpson, was the subject of cruel talk on the Web when she was photographed with new “curves” while singing in high-waisted jeans. On Wednesday, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance said everyone should get off Simpson’s back.      “Whether or not Jessica chooses to gain or lose weight, is not a guage of her talent,” the group told celebrity news site RadarOnline.com. “Our nation is really obsessed with weight and it’s time to move past that.”      That may seem like a far-off day, but if a sex symbol star like Jessica Alba has given up on workouts and is/was wearing a girdle, anything is possible.

Bummer of a week for Jessica Simpson

 No doubt about it. It’s been a tough week for country singer Jessica Simpson after pictures of her new “curves” while wearing high-waisted jeans sparked some cruel headlines.

But friends and relatives have rallied round, including a vote of support from Simpson’s ex-husband Nick Lachey, who was married to the singer from 2002-2005.

“I wish her nothing but the best and I hope she’s happy — whatever size that comes in, “Lachey told celebrity web site Extra on Friday. “I can’t believe it’s this big of a story and people are making such a big deal about it. I never ceased to be amazed by people’s reactions to things.”

Simpson, 28,  wearing tight black leather pants for a concert in Charlottesvlle, Virgina, thanked her fans on Thursday for their support without directly using words like buxom, fat, or jumbo that have been thrown around in her direction this week.

“Please remember, no matter what you go through in life, somebody else might have it harder,”  she told the crowd, according to People.com. ” I feel like in our world today, we focus on so many things that are completly pointless.”

Simpson’s brother-in-law, Fall Out Boy  front-man Pete Wentz , also came to her defense.  Wentz   told Extra that the media “puts too harsh of a spotlight on women in general and I think it’s a bummer. Real beauty is on the inside, man.”

Simpson isn’t the first celebrity to get ripped for apparently putting on a few pounds, and despite all the furor in recent years over anorexic looking fashion models, it looks as if she won’t be the last.

Jessica Simpson goes back to religious roots?

(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

Singer Jessica Simpson is going back to her roots, in more ways than one.

Having recently re-invented herself as a country music, rather than a pop, star,  the blond, Texas-born daughter of a church minister says she now wants to study religion.      “I’ve been contemplating taking a college course in religion,” Simpson told Marie Claire magazine in an interview.  “I love religion. I remember whenever the book ‘The Da Vinci Code’ came out, the Discovery Channel did this three-night piece on it that I TiVoed and then watched eight times.”      Simpson, 28, started singing in the choir of her Baptist church but later became a teen pop star  in the mode of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.  A strong Christian, she wore a purity ring and said she had remained a virgin until her short-lived marriage in 2002 to boyband singer Nick Lachey.

Simpson later branched out into acting, appearing in the 2005 movie “The Dukes of Hazard”.  But in September she released a country music album that went to the top of the Billboard country music charts, giving Simpson her first No 1album.

Jessica Simpson: Y’all want some beer?

She has scored top-selling albums, conquered reality TV, and played Daisy Duke in big-budget movie “The Dukes of Hazzard,” so blonde beauty Jessica Simpson is doing what any native Texan might do when a hot career needs a cool break. She’s grabbin’ a beer, and she wants y’all to grab one, too — as long as it’s a Stampede.

Dallas-based Stampede Brewing Co Inc on Wednesday revealed that Simpson, 28, would appear in a print advertisement for its new  Stampede Light Plus brand that is infused with B vitamins, folic acid, and folate.

“Yes, I work out and take care of myself, but I also like a cold beer once in a while,” Simpson said in a statement released by Stampede.

A spokeswoman for the actress said that as of now only the one print advertisement has been produced. But there could be more down the road because Simpson owns about 15 percent of the company. The spokeswoman said Simpson was a huge fan of the brand.

In her brief career, Simpson has scored seven Billboard top 40 hit songs, starred in eight films and put out a line of clothing, swimwear and fashion accessories. For a time, she appeared on reality TV show “Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica” with ex-husband Nick Lachey. But more recently, she has been romantically linked to Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.

Simpson also is a young ambassador for Operation Smile, an organization dedicated to helping children with cleft lips and/or pallets in underprivileged communities.