She may not have made it past the first round but the little girl known as 'Crying Girl,' Ashley Ferl, is happy about her "American Idol" audition experience.

"I'm still glad I did it!" she exclaimed.

[left, Ashley Ferl and mom Stacy at the American Idol auditions]

I spoke to Ashley this morning - the Riverside, California teen who gained national fame two and half years ago for her tearful reaction to seeing season six contestant Sanjaya Malakar perform live during Top 11 week on "American Idol." 

In April she turned 16, which made her eligible to audition for the show. Despite having no true singing experience she went for it!

"I just kind of practiced in my room and that's about it," she told me this morning.

We may never know who is telling the whole truth in the he said/he said battle between "The Bachelorette's" Wes Hayden and Jake Pavelka. This morning Jake defended his decision to rat Wes out to Jillian on Monday night's episode for having a girlfriend.

In a conference call with reporters Jake admitted to being a, "god fearing man" and hit us with this declaration,

"Beyond a shadow of a doubt, you know, shall God strike me down with lightning... if I am mistaken and he did not tell me that."

I have to admit Jake did make quite the case for himself when he repeatedly made it clear that Wes, a country singer from Austin, TX, told him he went on the show to further his career, and that he had a girlfriend named Laurel waiting for him back home. Laurel is the same girl who also dated "The Bachelor's" Brad Womack. 

"I know 100 percent that he [Wes] and Laurel are together. They were together during the show. Brad introduced them." Jake revealed.

I keep reading articles where the kids on Bravo's new reality show "NYC Prep" say they don't want to be compared to the spoiled teenagers on CW's "Gossip Girl." Well, don't worry guys... there is no comparison because as it turns out... your lives are not even half as interesting as Chuck, Blair, Serena, Jenny or Dan.

"NYC Prep" aired its second episode last night where cupcakes were the hot topic du jour. Not really -- but between Sebastian, Taylor and Kelli's obviously forced love triangle and PC's, "whoa is me... I'm single" rants, not much else was going on in the show.

The series seems completely flat when you compare it to Bravo's fantastic drama fueled "Real Housewives" franchise. I don't know... maybe it's because I'm not a teenager anymore that these kids' lives just seem lame and boring. I like little Sebastian and his crazy hair, mean girl Jessie and even PC (who they are trying to make out to be the bad boy of the show). Although, to me he's more Jack from "Will and Grace" than Dylan from "Beverly Hills 90210"... if you catch my drift. They just need to lose the other three girls. Perhaps bring in a few Jersey teens in to shake things up and rattle some tables.

With all this Michael Jackson news I'm feeling very lonely around the Access Hollywood offices. Everyone is busy and in newshound mode while little old me is still in Dish of Salt mode. Frankly, I like it that way. You know I can't live without my TV!

Last night was like sensory overload. After yet another doctor appointment (someone please figure out what's wrong with me soon!) I was not allowed to go to the gym. So, I arrived home at 6 PM with nothing to do. Fortunately, my TV was calling my name with tons of goodies. "Weeds" was on at 7 PM on Showtime  I ponder - do we want Nancy with the evil mayor slash drug lord or should she and Andy, brother-in-law of dead husband, hook up? I can't decide.

"Nurse Jackie" followed at 7:30 PM. How can Jackie be cheating on that adorable, hunky and might I add younger (Go Edie Falco!) husband with the balding pharmacist guy!? I don't get it.

Then it was two hours of "The Bachelorette" on ABC, which was by far the MOST craptastic episode ever. Fans of the show will get that joke. Jillian goes on her hometown dates. I decided I need to marry into Kiptyn's family who clearly have some moolah. She zips through three other hometown dates in record time. At this point it's 8:50 PM and I'm wondering how they will fill the next hour and ten minutes. Then pilot Jake returns to stalk Jillian in Austin.

Last week was obviously a trying week with the loss of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and yesterday Billy Mays (with whom I had a personal connection.) So, I wasn't able to get this story up until now. Tanner made me laugh though. So I wanted to make sure I gave him a little Dish of Salt love. Things get a bit racy towards the end so click away if you are not old enough to attend R rated movies.
 
Well if you recall, I made a blunder when I wrongly reported, a month or so before "The Bachelorette" started airing, that Tanner was a single dad. Fortunately, Tanner forgave me for this mistake after I re-canted. We had a lovely conversation about shoe size, pedicures and whether he's now a stud back in Dallas where he lives. 

Yesterday was by the far the craziest day I have ever experienced working for Access Hollywood. We have had shocking, unexpected deaths come along in the 13 years we have covered the world of celebrities from big to small - JFK Jr., Sonny Bono, Aaliyah, Phil Hartman, Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger. Never have we seen the death of two pop cultures icons in one day, just five hours apart. I wasn't in the trenches the way our producers and full-time Web staff were. They were working furiously to get the information out and my buzzing blackberry said it all about what was happening in our offices and continues to be happening. It's going to be a long week ahead and my hats off to everyone here for their dedication.

This morning I was up early doing back to radio interviews with stations across the country to talk about the latest news and the impact Michael had in people's lives. The one question that kept coming up was, "What are your best memories of growing up to Michael Jackson or covering him over the years?"

Two stories came to mind.

There has been a lot of joking around the last couple of weeks at work about how much TV I watch. For some people this could be the road to a pink slip... but fortunately, for me, it's my job to watch television. I have to know who is who on what show, which show is hot, which showed jumped the shark, what's the next "Gossip Girl," who died last night on "Desperate Housewives" or which reality star is having a meltdown at any given moment on any given cable channel.

I'm sure at one point in my life someone probably asked me what I wanted to do for a living and I mostly likely said, "Wouldn't it be great if someone would pay me to watch TV all day?"  Who could have guessed that one day they would?!

I've always been a TV addict -- ever since I can remember. My mom would plop me in front of "Sesame Street" as a toddler where I would sit mesmerized by Cookie Monster and Big Bird. Later, as a pre-teen I would fight with my brothers about watching "The Brady Bunch." They wanted to watch "M*A*S*H" so I would steal the dials off the living room TV so they couldn't change the channel. I could not miss a minute of the wholesome family fun that Greg, Peter, Jan, Cindy, Bobby and, of course... Marcia, Marcia, Marcia cooked up. 

I was on vacation last week but couldn't miss the opportunity to hear "Bachelorette" reject David Good explain his Jekyll and Hyde behavior on the show. So I forwent some beach time to listen to reporters drill him for answers on Thursday morning. Of course, as you can see, I wasn't willing to give up beach time to actually write this up! But better late than never, right?

Not surprisingly, David blamed most of his bad behavior on the editing, claiming what we saw was only, "1 percent of me as a person and that 1 percent was the bad part of David Good."

If that's the case, I'd hate to see the other 99 percent of David Good. I don't think he really did the best job of convincing reporters on the call that he wasn't that angry guy. The only thing I believe is that he regrets how he acted now having watched it back. He says, "I was very upset with myself the way I behaved. I thought I brought a lot more to the show than that. I had to call my grandparents and apologize after the show aired." 

While the ratings for NBC's revamp of "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!" continue to be unimpressive, the media coverage of the Heidi and Spencer debacle continues.

I watched the first episode of the show and found myself gagging as they were eating live bugs and rat tails. Its train wreck TV at its best but even I can't stomach the creepy crawly stuff. I have no idea why anyone would want to put themselves through this nightmare. I know they are giving money to their chosen charities but these celebs have got to be getting paid to do this!

 
Now viewers may not be tuning into the show in droves, but they are interested in reading about the drama online courtesy of Heidi and Spencer. As it stands now, "The Hills" stars have quit "ten or twenty times," according to Angela Shelton, the first celebrity eliminated from the show on Thursday night.
 
Their fate will be determined on Monday night's episode whether or not they will be allowed to return to the show, again. Angela believes her fellow celebs will allow them back without holding a grudge, but as for her, she is done with the duo.
 
"I don't think they should be able to go back at all," Shelton told reporters in a conference call on Friday. "I think he [Spencer] is very unhinged. I'm trying to figure out how he passed the pysch evaluation and by what margin."

"American Idol" is back already.
 
Here it was I thought I was going to have a nice little break from all the insanity, but it turns out it was short lived.
 
I got an e-mail this morning announcing that "American Idol" auditions begin June 14th in Boston, Mass. My eyes bugged out like a cartoon character and I could hear horns blowing in my head when I read the date. What? June 14th? I thought, 'Wait, am I reading this right? Shouldn't it be July 14th?' Alas the date was correct.