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As much as we cherished the idea of Courtney Love perpetrating the first physical act of judge-on-contestant violence (excepting, of course, those moments when Ryan Seacrest gets handsy with the shoulders of inconsolable male contestants) as the newest member of the American Idol team, we knew deep in our hearts that a wave of denials about an alleged offer to join the show was in the offing. Idol mastermind Nigel Lythgoe's statement that he never made a recruitment pitch to Love has Us Weekly backing slowly away from yesterday's item, while Love herself, in her trademarked agrammatical fashion, rambles at length on her website about how Us molested her (we think; it's all so terribly confusing) in its quest for controversy [via Tabloid Whore] :

# court said on 30 Jan 2007 at 7:47 pm This kerfuffle is NONSENSE, i said to a friend who obviously passed igt on the wrong way that it was awierdly brilliant PRANK CALL, if it was NOT a prank call i woul dnever ever do that, ive never watche dthat show except once with my daughter i went to the final night, I couldnt even get ON that show nor would i wantt o and no offense to anyone who has been on that show and wantsto be on that show- i have no interest at this point in my life, im interested in putting this record out- doing films and doiung rock shows this summer and being on the road, and thats what i shall do. US misrepresented and misquoted me and nothing i said was ever meant for any publication.

I didnt kn ow it wa sgoing to be a big deal but then again ive been very busy and id ont exactly pay attention to pop culture and id ont read tabloids and idont have a google alert i find lofe fAr easier without those things, good reviews are great biut baqd ones suck and its best to nopt read them at all, i like how Ben Kingsley hasnt readhis own press in 2w0 some years, and i aspire to that- last time i read my press was a Brit piece that had me in bed for three dayus and is wor eoff reading my own press after that, of ocuerse i needmy publicist to tell me who to speak to and who nit to but my days of speaking directly to editors etc are behind me- i was followed by paparazzi all day today and have had to get armed security for the evening so we can have some privacy die to that dumb piece wich is ourt of prder an dout of context its TOTALLY RANDOM

So, to review: Kerfuffle is nonsense, dumb piece out of order/context, armed security hired to combat paparazzi hoping to capture perfect image above which an opportunistic, truth-agnostic tabloid can print AMERICAN IDOL'S NEW PAULA? in attention-grabbing 32-point typeface. Also: her new record, a potential masterpiece, is in stores this summer!—unless, of course, all this harmful press about being begged to join the most popular show in the world gets in the way of her efforts to promote her music career.