Paris Staying! Ho, Ho, Ho - Not Funny

Paris Bennett is not – I repeat, NOT – dropping out of American Idol. Hurray! Hurrah! Yippee!

The real Rodney Ho stepped forward this morning at 11:35am to pronounce yesterday’s 5:13pm poster an imposter.

Ho wrote, "Some jokester posted under my name yesterday at 5:13 p.m. It’s a faker. (Ditto to anybody else posting under my name last night or this morning.) Not me at all. Why would I post something in the blog comments section of that magnitude rather than make a real blog item? So if someone tries that again, please email me or call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx and flag it for me. A friend of mine flagged this one down for me.

So in summary: Paris isn’t going anywhere. I was just at Starr’s Mill High School this morning and was interviewing some of her friends. That’s why I hadn’t even been on the blog lately.”

I had no idea when I wrote Ho-Town Hoedown on American Idol that I would be spending time shortly thereafter in a real Ho-Town and it would feel like purgatory. Mea maxima culpa. I take full responsibility for my foolish role in this gossip mongering and pray that no one was harmed.

Good Friday found regular readers of Rodney Ho’s American Idol Buzz columns hoodwinked like me and still as confused about the fake comment before he published this morning’s column. Here are excerpts from today’s pre-clarification thread about the poster-imposter.

Deirdre 8:17am: “So I guess today is just going to be confusing. My suggestion to the real Rodney is to either not post today at all, or when you plan to post something, give one of us a call so that we can let the others know it is you. Either that, or send out the jerk police and have this guy arrested…

My poor 85 year old mom got all upset when I told her that Paris was thinking of leaving the competition…are you proud of yourself…are you going to tell an 85 year old to ‘get a life’?”

Mike S 8:27am: “As an IT professional it would seem to me they should be able to set things so no one can use the name Rodney Ho —- RH ya’ll might want to look into that.”

Yo Daddy 9:07am: “I am so confused. This is why it would be nice if AJC would set up a bulletin board type forum. We could register our names and trouble makers could be banned.

Carla 9:08am: “What up Yo. So was the Paris posting a fake or what?”

Carla 9:15am: “Yesterday Rodney or a Rodney impersonator said that Paris was quitting the competition. But then some later posts said it was fake. I’m not sure who the real Rodney is anymore.”

Vin 9:39am: “Hi All. I caught Rodney’s post yesterday about Paris wanting to blow the gig. So that wasn’t the real Rodney? What is going on up in here?”

Jim J 9:51am: “What up, blawg pound? Someone seems to have gotten really carried away on this blog lately. Hey Mike, is there not a way AJC could require email addresses to be registered or some kind of safeguard. I feel your pain, Rodney Ho. Some idiot jerk has posted under my name many times, and there is really nothing that can be done about it.”

Update: The real Rodney Ho (at least, I think it was the real Rodney Ho) contacted me this morning. I thank him and apologize sincerely for helping to perpetuate the hoax.

He wrote, "“This is the real Rodney Ho at the Atlanta Journal Constiuttion. All that is not real. Someone was pretending to be me. Feel free to call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx and I can confirm that.”