Not feeling the Uggs!

Bauer Griffin

In an appearance taped for an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show set to air Tuesday, Adam Lambert spoke about the week’s big American Idol news — Simon Cowell’s announcement that this season, which kicked off Tuesday, will be his last.

“The audience will definitely miss Simon,” Lambert, 27, says. “The contestants will miss out on, like, really honest criticism. Sometimes it can be a little personal, and I know other contestants took it to heart sometimes and got really stressed out about what he would say. [But] I think that that’s important to making you a better performer … You’ve got to hear the good and the bad.”

But American Idol can survive without Cowell, according to Lambert, because the show isn’t about the cheeky British judge. “Ultimately, after the first couple weeks of auditions, the audience tunes in every week for the contestants,” says Lambert, who performs his current song, “Whataya Want From Me,” on Oprah. “[Audiences] grow fond of one or a couple of the people and they get behind them and they’re invested in them. And of course it’s great to hear … what’s Simon going to say. But we tune in to hear the contestants blossom or not.”

Source, Bauer-Griffin

Madonna and Britney yes, Adam Lambert and male keyboardist no?

On Wednesday’s Early Show appearance by Lambert, producers blurred the singer’s open-mouth kiss with a male keyboardist during his controversial performance at Sunday’s AMAs. Seconds later, an undistorted clip of Madonna smooching Britney Spears at the 2003 MTV VMAs ran.

What gives? A CBS rep explained the decision to Extratv:

“We gave this some real thought. The Madonna image is very familiar and has appeared countless times including many times on morning television. The Adam Lambert image is a subject of great current controversy, has not been nearly as widely disseminated, and for all we know, may still lead to legal consequences.”

Jarrett Barrios, President of GLAAD, called the edits “an unfortunate double standard that is applied to openly gay performers. I would have hoped that CBS would provide the same treatment for images of gay and lesbian people and not create an unfair double standard that treats our community differently.” Barrios also notes that the organization has reached out to the Early Show’s producers to express these concerns.

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Adam Lambert says he had “no clue at all” that his racy performance during Sunday’s American Music Awards would ignite such a firestorm of controversy.

“I admit, I did get carried away, but I don’t see anything wrong with it,” he said on CBS’ The Early Show Wednesday. “I do see how people got offended and that was not my intention. My intention was just to interpret the lyrics to my song and have a good time up there.”

He said the sexually-charged moves — which included smooching another man and simulating oral sex — were not a part of his rehearsal and were “impromptu.”

“ABC was taken a little by surprise — and that wasn’t my intention,” he said. “I wasn’t being sneaky.” Being on stage, he said, “It got the most of me.”

He said that he “can understand” why parents are upset. But “honestly, it didn’t cross my mind … children. It was almost 11 o’clock. It was a nighttime show. I was there in the audience full of mostly adults.”

Because he has a theater background, he said he sometimes forgets that there’s “a camera on. I am programmed to kind of look at who’s in the live audience.”

Lambert, 27, said he was “looking out in the crowd” and saw some of his favorite pop stars and thought, “‘I wanna let loose!’ It just kind of got the best of me.”

He said though many complained, a lot of people also enjoyed his performance.

“Like Idol, I have the tendency to divide people,” he said. “Apples and oranges. You either like it or you don’t.”

He also said that if he had been “a female pop performer doing the moves … I don’t think there would have been nearly as much of an outrage.”

Janet Jackson grabbed a male dancer’s crotch, he noted.

“I didn’t hear one peep about that…” he said, adding that people re complaining because “I am a gay male.” Asked if he would do anything over, he said, “I would sing it a little bit better!”

In the future, “I will probably make more of a little bit more of an effort to stay consistent with what I do during rehearsal to what I do during the show,” Lambert said. “That is something I am learning. That way, if anyone has any problems with what I am doing, that can be explored during rehearsal.”

His message to fans? “This is one song, one production number…” he said. “I hope people don’t put me in a box and say, ‘Oh, he’s nasty and he’s going to be that way all the time!’ It was one performance.”

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Hours after ABC pulled the plug on Adam Lambert’s Good Morning America performance, Ryan Seacrest exclusively spoke to the Idol runner up who shocked audiences Sunday night at the AMAs with a sexually charged performance.

Check out the following quotes from the revealing interview:

On his racy AMA performance:

“It’s choreography, we were dancing. The sexuality of it kind of got a little more extreme when I got up on stage. I think the adrenaline kind of took me over, and I admit it, and i’m proud of the fact that I did get a little carried away.”

“I don’t feel I owe anyone an apology for anything. I performed, it was late night TV, I did something that female performers have been doing for years, no different. It’s just the fact that I’m me and it’s a little different for people. It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“I’m not a babysitter, I’m a performer.”

On the appearance of a double standard:

“I do think there’s a slight double standard. We’ve seen female pop performers doing extremely sexual routines for years and all of the sudden a guy does it and it’s crazy.”

On ABC’s decision to cancel his GMA performance:

“Obviously I respect their decision, they gotta do what they gotta do. It’s too bad, I think there were a lot of fans who were excited to come see me.”

“They probably had a lot of pressure coming at them from certain people who weren’t happy about it. I respect their decision – I don’t necessarily agree with it, but they need to do what they need to do.”

Listen to the audio here

More Adam and half naked backup dancers after the jump! (more…)

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