My Morning With 'Idol' Champ David Cook!

Only one man could have gotten me up this morning at 3 AM and that was the "American Idol" winner -- David Cook! We met up back down at the Nokia Theater this morning at 4:30 AM. When I arrived David was already there just hanging out, coffee in hand, no entourage to speak of. His car had dropped him off before anyone from Fox was even there to greet him. Not exactly the scene you would expect for the most talked about person in America today. Five minutes later the Fox people arrived, swooped up David, threw him in a chair for makeup and then he was off and running, doing back-to-back three-minute interviews with Fox affiliates around the country.
 
My favorite moment was when the Philadelphia affiliate had a special reporter to interview David, 11-year Rocco Fiorentino who has been legally blind since birth. He's a singer, pianist, & composer whose dream is to be on "American Idol" when he turns 16. He considers himself to be a prodigy, just like David Archuleta, and the boy sure can sing. If the show is still on the air in five years, I predict Rocco will be in the Top 12! You heard it here first.
 
David Archuleta showed up just after 5 AM and was off and running with the Fox affiliates as well. Both David's continued the interview circuit for over three hours with barely a break in between. I, however, grabbed my crew and went for some breakfast. When we returned, I got a chance to talk to Archie who seems every week to be breaking out of his shyness shell. Back to back interviews will do that to you. Archie confirmed what I reported yesterday, that Grammy winning songwriter Diane Warren had approached him about penning songs for him. He was flattered and believes this is a collaboration that will definitely happen. 
 
Next, David Cook and I were off in a limo back to the Access Hollywood stage. The poor guy was exhausted. By this point he had been up for over 24 hours straight with no sleep last night. He went straight from the show to tons of press interviews, photos and then to the 19 Entertainment party to meet up with friends, family and fellow contestants. After I gave him a quick Idol quiz David took the remaining 15 minutes of the drive to catch a few zzzs. I personally could never fall asleep like that, but David was out like a light for about ten minutes. He looked so cute with his head leaning over on the seat, like a little boy. I felt so bad when we arrived that he had to wake up. Next, it was into our studios where I left David in our green room to catch a few more minutes of shuteye on the coach before performing in our stage and talking to Nancy O'Dell.