Recently American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee was supposed to do an in-studio interview with Washington DC's Hot 99.5 to promote Hillary Clinton's campaign fundraiser in D.C. at which she was performing, and one of the conditions of the interview was that she not be asked any personal questions. Doesn't seem too different from what most celebrities demand when being interviewed on television or radio.

Unfortunately, because of delays, Katharine wasn't able to make it to the studio, so the interview had to be conducted over the phone. Doesn't seem too out of the ordinary, either. I've listened to many a radio stations where the celebrity wasn't able to make it into the studio for whatever reason, and they simply did the interview as planned, over the phone. But apparently radio personality and wannabe shock jock Kane was not pleased. Instead of doing the interview as planned, he unprofessionally set Katharine up.

He had an untrained intern do the interview, and gave her specific questions to ask Katharine that he knew would be inappropriate and upset her. One of which was "How old is your boyfriend?" Katharine answered "….42?".  Then came "Do you like older men?" Another one was "Do you find it difficult to stay faithful to your boyfriend now that you're famous?". Yeah, imagine someone asking Christina Aguilera that question on a Friday morning before she's has her Evian and bagel. An explanation or transcript cannot do the interview justice. You must hear it for yourself.  Then listen to the on-air commentary as they play it back, where Kane pretends as if he had no idea the intern was going to ask such questions.  A link is provided at the bottom of this article.  The interview is hard to listen to, and using the word "unprofessional" to describe it is the understatement of the century.

Katharine's fans were angry that she was treated so rudely, and e-mailed Kane to give him a piece of their mind — letting him know that what he did was not okay.  One of his responses was this e-mail — which further proves his brain stopped developing once he reached the age of 12:

Subject: RE: This is who you you were disrespectful to yesterday.
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 17:26:06 -0500
From: kane@hot995.com
To: uplink

Looks like it didn't go so well for her after the show either. Maybe she should have been nicer and been live as she promised.

Check out the article from Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte…av=rss_politics

Cheers!
-K

The article he linked the fan to, was a piece written by the Washington Post about Hillary's fundraising event, and it mentions how the crowd was not very into Katharine's performance, and wouldn't clap when she asked them to — trying to rev them up. What does that have to do with her flight being delayed? What does that have to do with her being asked personal questions? What does that have to do with him having an intern conduct a celebrity interview?  Absolutely nothing.  But what else does an immature, pudgy 12 year old boy with oversized glasses do when he's mad at his big sister for taking his candy? Call her fat and ugly. Completely uncalled for, and unrelated.

Though I suppose we should keep this in perspective.  After all, Kane is the same DJ who had the station put up bail money for Bobby Brown a short while ago in exchange for him coming in as a guest all week.  Unfortunately for Kane, Mr. Brown never showed up.  Oops.  Another reason for Kane to hit the Haagen Dazs.

Another fan called up the station themselves and this is what they had to say: 

I've spoken on our behalf and he has listened. EVIDENTIALLY, their station is ill not at Kat, where they directed their anger, but at her people. He said that they were called only 20 minutes before her interview to say her flight was delayed but then evidentially she was heard live in studio in Baltimore 30 minutes later, which is a 90 minute trip from the airport where she supposedly landed.

So Kane was angry at Katharine's management…yet he took it out on Katharine herself. I'm not seeing how this adds up.  Maybe because it doesn't.  Why would Katharine herself intentionally not show up to an interview?  What do you think she's doing instead? Chewing Bubble Yum and reading US Weekly by the pool?  With 330,000 copies of her album sold, why wouldn't she be turning down promotional opportunities left and right? Makes sense, right? No, it doesn't.

And let's consider for a second, that for whatever reason, Katharine did intentionally blow off the interview.  Why not handle it like a mature, professional adult?  Bring it up in the interview, force her to explain herself on the spot, scold her on or off the air for giving such short notice.  Why feel the need to orchestrate this shady charade?  Then, if you are going to do something like this, at least take credit for it.  Have some balls.  Don't try to blame it on your "clueless intern" so you don't look like an ass.  Howard Stern would not be happy.

So none of this is that big a deal.  I'm sure it made Katharine a little angry, but I doubt she fretted for long after the interview was done.  But this looks like a case of someone not being able to take a dose of their own medicine, because after Katharine's fans emailed and called in complaining about the way she was treated, not only did Kane respond to the e-mails, but even took his story to the press.  And bragged about it on his own blog.  He writes:

Thanks to our pals at TMZ.com, MSNBC and US Weekly for running with the story today. We also got a call from the fine people over at E!'s DAILY 10. Looks like we'll make that tonight if there isn't other Paris news!

He hand fed MSNBC the story. He said "It makes Kat look bad when ever other word in your e-mail about how you thought we didn’t handle the interview professionally starts with an f—." Of course we should believe him, he's already exposed himself as a liar. TMZ wrote a small blurb, amongst other stories, bound to never be read by anyone but a few disgruntled Elliott Yamin fans with Katharine's Google News search bookmarked, the supposed US Weekly story is nowhere to be found, and E!'s Daily 10 simply ran the audio of the awkward exchange between Katharine and the intern–making the station look bad–and there was no mention of Kane himself or any angry e-mails from Katharine fans.  Oops again.  Self-ownage at its best. 

I suppose Katharine should be thanking him for the free press, even though she has no problem getting it all on her own.

What exactly is Kane's problem? Did someone eat the last donut from his morning box of Krispy Kremes (because of course, there naturally is an afternoon and evening box as well)?  Did he not get enough hugs from Mommy and Daddy as a child?  Did he wake up one day and realize he looked like a bloated Uncle Kracker with Rosacea?  Or was he having flashbacks to middle school when Becky Sue, the pretty cheerleader he stared at during lunch told him she'd never give him the time of day. 

Given the middle school picture of himself (embedded in this paragraph) that he posted on the station's website, I'd be inclined to say all of the above questions could be answered in the affirmative (by the way, he also posted a picture in his gallery of a very unflattering photo of Katharine after she'd gotten her wisdom teeth taken out–that he acquired from Idol Forums, one of Katharine's fan message boards).  He desperately wanted to meet the beautiful Katharine McPhee, hoping to get the kind of approval from a beautiful woman he's been hoping for since he was a tickle in his mommy's pappysack (to quote the great Daphne Aguilera).  Even if he didn't get to relive his childhood memories like he wanted to, at least he gained a bit of notoriety.  Now when I Google him the first few results are about Katharine McPhee.

Why is he spending all this time responding to these emails, and clamoring to get some sort of press from this?  He's even checking Katharine's message boards where her fans gather daily to see what they're saying about him (he's even mentioned one particular forum in his own blog).  My advice to Kane?  Get a hobby.

Original interview

Interview with Kane's commentary