American Idol Gives Back... and I was there!

I can no longer complain about not seeing celebrities in LA. I got to go to the taping of American Idol Gives Back on Sunday (it aired tonight at 7:30pm) at the Kodak Theater (where the Oscars are!) because I know someone who knows someone.

Here’s a complete list of all the celebrities I saw wayyyy up close:
- Brad Pitt
- Reese Witherspoon
- Billy Crystal
- Robin Williams
- David Spade
- Terri Hatcher
- James Denton
- Greg Grunberg
- Miley Cyrus
- Maroon 5
- Ryan Seacrest
- Paula Abdul
- Simon Powell
- Randy Jackson
- Fergie
- Snoop Dog
- Gloria Estefan
- Maria Carey
- Jesse Spencer
- Sarah Silverman
- Jimmy Kimmel
- Carrie Underwood
- Annie Lenox

I can now leave Los Angeles feeling complete!

Here’s some trivia about the show, airing Wednesday at 9 EST, that you won’t see on TV:

The audience’s reaction to Reese Witherspoon is not the initial surprise. The first time she walked on stage and began her speech, the crowd went NUTS, but something went wrong with the audio, so Reese shouted, “Pretend you didn’t see me!” and they had to redo it.

o Brad Pitt started to get annoyed that the girls in the crowd wouldn’t stop cheering for him because he couldn’t start his speech. Even though they left the footage where is microphone fell off his shirt and someone had to run out in fix it, they also edited out a lot of the cheering.

o Band for TV (the performance of Terri Hatcher singing Carrie Underwood’s song “Before He Cheats” with James Denton, Greg Grunberg, and Jesse Spencer) couldn’t be there for the show at night, so they prerecorded their performance around noon with seat fillers in the audience. Terri Hatcher was really nervous before singing, but she did an incredible job! On the second take of the song, Jesse came up to her during the first verse strumming his little electric violin and gave her a really seductive look. As soon as Teri looked at him, she burst out in a fit of giggles and said, “He’s so distracting! Look how gorgeous he is!”

o Maroon 5’s performance was also prerecorded. Unfortunately, it was cut, even though the performance was great. When they brought out Maroon 5, the production crew wasn’t ready, so they were waiting onstage for a while. The lead singer couldn’t figure out how to have his collar to hid the bug microphone, and he kept saying, “Well somebody better come over and fix this!” When nobody did, someone on stage just walked over and popped his collar. During the actual performance, the lead singer was looking directly into my eyes the whole time (no really, I swear… either I was his line of reference since I happened to be sitting at eye level a few rows back in the center, right in front of the microphone, or he literally was looking into my eyes).

o John Legend had a solo performance before Fergie joined him. But they cut the entire thing. I guess someone sitting at a piano and singing is too “boring” to air unless you’re Annie Lenox.

o Much of the audience booed during John McCain’s video. Because of this, they cut out all three candidates’ videos.

So now that I've seen all these celebrities, I feel like I can leave LA having had the complete LA experience. Sorry for the lack of pictures... we weren't allowed to bring in phones, cameras, or purses.