Is anyone else willing to confess to being hoovered in to this season's American Idol audition specials? They started on TV3 a few weeks back (Saturday evenings, repeated Sunday mornings, you know you want to). Anyway, remember the episode which featured the attention starved muppet who insisted on auditioning in nothing but a bikini? OK, now d'you remember the dude from Louisville? The editors went to great pains to portray him as an embittered gun toting yokel during at least three "coming next!" pre-ad break snippets? Well, AI producers have now issued an apology for their ignorance:

"We apologize to any viewers who were offended by the misinterpretation of the contestant's comment to 'be careful' upon completion of his audition in Louisville, KY. Our visits to audition cities are relatively brief and sometimes regional greetings and salutations are lost in translation. We had not heard that phrase from any other contestants during the day, so it took everyone by surprise. We now know better and look forward to visiting Louisville again someday."

In case you didn't see the incident in question, check out Simon's reaction?! It's about time briquette head started experiencing a healthy level of paranoia - although he shouldn't be near the hysterical realm of Paula Abdul...