Each top-12 finalist voted off American Idol will perform the following week on The Late Show with David Letterman. Last night, Lacey Brown was the first to appear. As he did when he used to have Survivor rejects on his show, Dave deals with these segments gingerly, a tad unwillingly. He feigns total ignorance of Idol. (“Do people call in and say, ‘We don’t want that woman?’” he asked Brown.) He rags on the show. (“That Simon Cowell, he’s insane,” he told Lacey, who wasn’t disagreeing.) And Dave let Paul Shaffer do Brown’s intro: “Here’s the first finalist to get voted off — kicked off, really — and she doesn’t have to go on the tour, that’s the best thing.”
Lacey Brown herself could not have been more polite and game, singing a bit of “What A Wonderful World” as the segment went into a commercial:
“Does this mean you’re out of show business?” Dave asked Brown.
Brown knew where to hit Dave where it hurts. “You’ve got 11 more weeks of this,” she said sweetly. Dave looked a little ill.
CORRECTION: Some readers have pointed out this is Letterman’s first time hosting the Idol cast-offs. My apologies; I corrected my mistake above. I was thinking of Dave’s amusingly uncomfortable encounters with Survivor cast-offs in previous years. Survivor, Idol – reality TV, it’s a jungle out there. Sorry.
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