Clay Aiken Comes Out of the ClosetAfter years of turning against anyone who said the ‘American Idol’ runner-up was gay, are the Claymates going to attack Aiken himself now?
ByChris Rovzar
in other news
Clay Aiken vs. ‘Newsweek’ Reporter: A Catfight?Every journalist who has to talk to celebrities at some point has to deal with attacks. A star will tire of the reporter’s probing questions and will suddenly lash out. There are a few traditional means of doing this. First, and most common, is the “Why did you decide to do this for your job? There are hundreds of people dying in Iraq and you are asking me about my sex tape?” approach. Then, sometimes, there’s the “I’m calling my publicist and none of her other clients will work with you if this is how you operate,” tactic (otherwise known as “I’M TELLING MOM!”). And finally, there’s the “I thought you were better than this!” routine, which celebrities always think will work, but never does, because, hello, we’re reporters and you can’t appeal to our sense of shame because we don’t have one. This last mode was the one taken by Clay Aiken when Newsweek sent cute boy reporter Ramin Setoodeh to interview him about debuting in Spamalot this week, and to ask him about the whole incident with Kelly Ripa last year. (You remember, when she snapped at Aiken for putting his hand over her mouth, by saying, “I don’t know where that hand has been,” and then Rosie went bananas about it on The View and called Ripa a homophobe?) The minute Setoodeh brought it up, things went very downhill very fast:
What about the Kelly Ripa thing?
I’m not going to discuss it.
Did you think it was homophobic?
I’m not going to discuss it.
What do you want to talk about?
I think we’re done.