For the angry fans who want to send a message to Simon Cowell and the X Factor producers, there’s only one tactic that will work – vote for John and Edward. It became clear at the weekend that John and Edward are being kept in the competition to destabilise the other contestants and create publicity for the show. Even Louis Walsh admits they have no hope of winning, so why are they there?

We’ve been inundated with angry commenters who are either planning to boycott the show (I don’t believe them) or stop voting altogether. That won’t work! If you’re angry at the way X Factor has been managed this year, keep watching and voting, but only vote for John and Edward Grimes!

Why vote for John and Edward?

There’s an unspoken truth about X Factor this year: everybody knows it, but not many people are saying it out loud. The contestants this year are pretty dull.

I’m going to make my argument in3 simple bullet points:

• Including John and Edward in the X Factor final 12 was a joke.
• Allowing Lucie Jones to get eliminated made the show a complete joke. The judges vote is there to save credible talent.
• Therefore, taking our cues from Simon Cowell, the X Factor is no longer a singing competition or remotely concerned with talent. It’s about in-fighting between the celebrity judges, tactical voting and tabloid scandals.

I don’t think anybody on X Factor is good enough to be a major star. To compensate for the general lack of talent among the final 12, I think the show has aimed for stunts like Danyl Johnson’s bisexual slur, the shock elimination of Lucie Jones at the weekend and Louis Walsh’s audience-insulting antics.

Angry Fans

A lot of angry fans have left comments here to say that they’re boycotting the show, or refusing to vote in future. We feel your pain. Remember, we’re huge fans of X Factor, and when we criticise the show it’s because nothing less than awesome is good enough. We want X Factor to be brilliant again.

The thing is, this year’s X Factor is already lost. The producers have seen to that. We have a selection of distinctively average singers, and those that had any sort of edge at all were eliminated in the first few weeks. If you’re angry with the X Factor producers, and you want to make a difference, then you definitely need to vote for the worst possible act.

Vote For The Worst?

Vote For The Worst is the website that became popular when they rallied to keep American Idol’s laughable Sanjaya Malakar in the competition in 2007. They claimed that it was clear American Idol had already chosen who they wanted to win that year and were manipulating the competition to create their desired winner. Sound familiar? Is it possible X Factor are hoping for a Danyl Johnson versus Stacey Solomon final this year?

From the Vote For The Worst website:

The show starts out every year encouraging us to point and laugh at all of the bad singers who audition. If American Idol was really a show about finding the next great talent, these bad singers wouldn’t be allowed on the show, let alone allowed to advance through 3 auditions to see Simon and the gang, right? We want this entertainment to continue into the finals, so we choose the contestant that we feel provides the most entertaining performances that annoy the judges and the viewing public and we start voting for them. The show encourages us to vote for whomever we’d like. If the producers and judges put Sanjaya and others through to the semifinals, why do they get so mad when we start voting for the people they picked?

The best way to tell Simon Cowell and his producers that they’ve made X Factor a joke this year is to destroy the game plan. As Pete Waterman said this week, John and Edward are great for publicity for the show, but Simon Cowell will discard them when they’ve served their purpose. So what if John and Edward won?

Anyway, since it’s fairly clear the public is being manipulated for phone vote revenue and that there’s really nobody worth voting for anyway, why not Vote For The Worst? Yes, let’s vote for John and Edward in our droves and get them a £1 Million recording contract.

Jennifer Hudson has admitted that she will try to emulate the parenting skills of her late mother, when raising her new son David.

The American Idol star’s mother Darnell Donerson, was shot dead last year.

Hudson told Bang Showbiz: “It’s never easy to be a mother but I have said to myself that everything I do will be guided by love. If I can be half the mom my mother was to her children, then I’m doing more than alright.”

She continued: “I want him to have God in his life. To me, that’s the most important thing. Also, my mother taught us to be independent and not to rely on anyone for anything. I will bring him up that way, too.”

American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi has admitted that she is behind the decision to hire Ellen DeGeneres as the show’s fourth judge.

“I’m a huge Ellen DeGeneres fan,” the songwriter admitted during an interview on Sirius XM’s The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick. “I think she’s going to bring so much to the show.”

“She’s somebody who loves music, she’s positive, she loves kids…She is somebody who has watched the show from the beginning, knows everything there is to know about American Idol and I think ultimately it’s going to be a great new energy.”

Kara is also thrilled that everyone won’t be talking about her relationship and supposed feud with Paula this year.

“Oh my god, thank you!!…Oh god!!” she replied when Flick asked about moving on from last year’s speculation.

“It was pretty hellish,” DioGuardi admitted..

“Yeah, I got slagged,” she said. “People were…it was difficult for them to accept the change. It was difficult for them to understand why somebody who nobody had ever heard of could kind of come out of nowhere and sit next to these iconic figures. You know, why was I there, what did I do to deserve to do to be there?”

“It will just be easier this year because I’m not as fearful as I was last year…For someone who’s never been on live television it’s very, very challenging to go from the back of the studio to the number one TV show, and that kind of visibility. And it was very, very, very scary.”

America’s Got Talent judge Sharon Osbourne, has backed new American Idol judge, Ellen DeGeneres.

“She will be a breath of fresh air on that show, a complete breath of fresh air,” the 56-year-old told People magazine. “It’s new blood. And [American Idol] needed something new to happen.

“I think if they had replaced Paula with another singer, Janet Jackson or J.Lo, it would have been too expected. Oh well, there we go, another singer. And with Ellen, you’ve got someone who knows about entertaining, and everything that goes into it, which also speaks for the people.”

Osbourne also supports Paula Abdul’s decision to leave the show. She said:

“I’m behind her. I think she put an awful lot into the show. She did do an awful lot for that show,” she added. “I would have probably done the same thing. I’m like, ‘Hey, what the men get, the women should get’.”

American Idol newbie Ellen DeGeneres, has expressed concern for outgoing judge Paula Abdul, saying that she hopes she is ok with her appointment.

Ellen was announced as the fourth judge on the show yesterday, while Paula was let go just last month.

“I’m gonna have fun with it. The one thing you know about me is I’m very honest. But I think you can be honest in a pretty kind way,” she told show presenter Ryan Seacrest on his radio programme.

“I hope to be that compassionate person, ’cause that’s the one thing Paula did bring – that compassion and that empathy.”

She added: “I hope Paula is okay with it. I don’t want anybody to think that I took Paula’s job away.

“First of all, I love music, period. I’ve always loved music. And I’m a huge fan of the show; I haven’t missed a show since season one. I’m just a fan like everyone else.

“The people are the ones who choose the American Idol. It doesn’t come down to a music expert ultimately.”

Great news American Idol lovers, Ellen DeGeneres has been chosen as the new American Idol fourth judge.

Ellen, who gained experience when she guest judged on So You Think You Can Dance this summer, will replace outgoing judge, Paula Abdul.

“I’m thrilled to be the new judge on American Idol,” DeGeneres says. “I’ve watched since the beginning, and I’ve always been a huge fan. So getting this job is a dream come true, and think of all the money I’ll save from not having to text in my vote.”

DeGeneres will continue to host her daily talk show.

“I’m going to have a day job and a night job,” she says. “The times we’re living in … we’re all doing that.”

“Hopefully I’m the people’s point of view because I’m just like you,” DeGeneres adds. “I sit at home and I watch it. … I’m not looking at it in a critical way from the producer’s mind. I’m looking at it as a person who is going to buy the music and is going to relate to that person.

The show’s executive producer Simon Fuller says, “I could not be more excited to have Ellen join the American Idol family. Ellen has been a fan of the show for many years, and her love of music and understanding of the American public will bring a unique human touch to our judging panel. I can’t wait for this next season to begin.”

I think Ellen is the perfect choice. She may not have professional musical experience, but she does know the showbiz world and she will certainly make better TV moments than babbling, incoherent Paula!

Simon Cowell has admitted that he loved working with Katy Perry, when she guested on American Idol recently.

“She’s a feisty little thing,” Cowell, 49, told US TV show Extra. “She’s quirky. Definitely got her own opinion.

“Solo artists are not used to people disagreeing with them. They are feisty and I like that.

“I don’t think she knew quite how right I was until she sat next to me.”

Ohhh those American Idol bosses are a canny lot. They drop the jibbering idiot judge (although possibly on a temporary basis) and fill her chair with some of America’s biggest celebrities and stars. Thats sure to pull them out of last year’s ratings slump.

The latest star reported to be taking on a judging stint alongside Simon and Co is ‘Skater Boy’ singer Avril Lavinge. According to EW.com, she will spend a full day critiquing auditionees for the show, as will ‘I Kissed a Girl’ singer Katy Perry.

Roll on American Idol 2010!

Katy Perry thinks that she might just bond with Simon Cowell when she appears as a guest judge on American Idol next month.

“I might become a little bit of a buddy with Simon,” Perry EW.com, “because whenever I watch that show, as much as he’s an asshole, he’s a very truthful, honest asshole.”

On how she will handle the auditionees and their dreams she said:

“I don’t want to break their hearts, but how many of us know that one person that has been trying and trying, and doing Karaoke and little gigs here and there at, like, an open mic. And nobody has told them they can’t sing in pitch—for, like, 15 years,” Perry said. “You’re like, ‘Somebody needs to say something’ and unfortunately, I might be that gal to tell you the truth.”

Even so, Perry said she wants to help someone “live out their dreams.”

“I’m in this every single day,” she said. “I’m seeing the ins and outs of both the business and the wonderful fruits of my labor. I really feel I have a very what’s-going-on-right-now perspective.”

We’ve had various tweets and statements from her manager, but for the first time since she left American idol, Paula Abdul has broken her silence.

In an interview with TV Guide, Paula has revealed how she feels about leaving the American talent show.

“You know, to say ‘no regrets’ isn’t easy. I feel like I have been such a big, huge part of the success of the show from day one. I loved being able to be the artist’s artist; being there from my point of view of knowing what it feels like to be vulnerable and to be out there wanting to achieve the most magical moment in a minute and 30 seconds. To be able to do that was an amazing experience, and the show was wonderful for me in that regard.”

She also revealed that she plans to watch the new series and possibly even her own replacement.

“I’ll watch it as much as I can. I had some really unforgettable moments that hit plateaus for me and I’m very blessed to have been a part of what made television history.”

Paula hinted that she may be about to get her very own chat show. Although nothing has been signed yet, she promised that her show would be “different.” “I’d be Paula,” she promised. “It would be a lot of fun variety with a ton of unexpected stuff and tributes to everyday people getting their big chance.”