Randy Jackson Packing Duct Tape for American Idol Shows

Trouble on the American Idol set already? It’s rumored that Randy Jackson let slip a little secret. He had asked his lawyers to add rolls of duct tape to the usual list of things in his contract he’d need while sitting in on some of the worst singing of his life. He also asked for specially designed ear wires that work to take away distracting background noise so that he could focus on the task at hand.

But if you think he was asking for these things because he’s had enough of the mediocre and sometimes just downright awful singing of hundreds of thousands of hopefuls who show up to audition for the hottest music talent search show in the world, you’d be wrong.

Sources close to Jackson admit that he had threatened to use the duct tape on Ellen when she started her “humming along” and “hours-long comedy routines” that he believed would not only be highly distracting, but would drive him nuts. At the time, Jackson was worried that he might lose it and he just couldn’t take a chance of ruining his career by throttling the throat of one of the most beloved personalities on live television. The duct taping, he said, would send a subtle but necessary message. Just one long piece over Degeneres’ mouth and the show could go on with Jackson’s sanity in check.

Jackson doesn’t like Ellen DeGeneres. Wait, let’s qualify that. According to Jackson’s spokesperson, “Randy likes Ellen DeGeneres as a person. He’s cool with her; it’s just when she goes on and on and on and on and can’t seem to control that incessant chatter that drives him up a frickkin’ wall. Randy is a bit miffed that they are taking a non-professional—in the sense that yeah, Ellen can appreciate music, but she can’t sing and as for dancing, well, it’s the same thing over and over and over and over. You get the gist of it. Ellen just takes it a little too far in everything she does.”

But why duct tape? Why not a gag? Something designer that would do the job but still make a fashion statement for the happy little imp? Evidently, Ellen has had this problem before and gags just don’t work on her. She manages to get words, albeit unintelligible words, out of her mouth by somehow throwing her voice from her throat. “It’s the damndest thing we’ve ever seen” said Jackson’s assistant. “Duct tape muffles everything DeGeneres says and words just don’t seem to be able to get out of her mouth as easily. Oh, don’t get me wrong, we figured when she was bound like that, she’d still be able to use her body language to distract Randy, but little by little, the little imp would wear herself out and about halfway through each taping, she would pretty much be spent.”

So far though, Jackson hasn’t used the tape. It’s still there in his dressing room and word has it that there are bets being taken around the set as to the exact time when Randy will ultimately decide he’s had enough and finally put the tape to good use. Whoever guesses the show date and time correctly is supposedly going to take home a lot of dough.

To give Ellen a chance to respond, we tracked her down backstage at her Ellen Degeneres Show to find out what she thought of Jackson’s request for duct tape at every taping of American Idol, and she just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed (with lots of emphasis on the “laughed”).