Nicole Richie Still Indecent

Cher and Nicole Richie are just as indecent and profane as ever. 

The Federal Communications Commission has reaffirmed its findings that the pop diva and the Simple Life star breached broadcast standards when they each uttered the F-word in separate award-show TV appearances.  

At the same time, the FCC reversed itself on two other cases, clearing a "bulls--t" dropped on CBS' Early Show in 2004 and declining to make further stink over "bulls--t" sprinkled throughout five episodes of ABC's NYPD Blue in 2003. 

No fines were proposed for the Cher and Richie incidents, as heard on Fox during the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards, respectively. That's because they occurred before the FCC decided that the F-word was bad even when used as an adjective, à la Bono's "This is really, really, f---ing brilliant" quip at the 2003 Golden Globes.   

Per the FCC, Fox played with fire by sending Richie out on live TV at the 2003 Billboard Music Awards. 

"As Fox well knew," the FCC decision said, "Ms. Richie frequently used indecent language in inappropriate contexts." 

As the FCC apparently might have guessed, Richie did not stick to her script at the award show during a banter session with fellow presenter and Simple Life costar Paris Hilton. Where Richie was to say, "Have you ever tried to get cow manure out of a Prada purse? It's not so freaking simple," Richie instead substituted "s--t" for "manure" and "f---ing" for "freaking." The improv was heard, and aired live, in the eastern time zone.  

A year earlier, at the 2002 Billboard Music Awards, it was Cher who sent network censors scrambling by accepting her Lifetime Achievement Award with a heartfelt, "People have been telling me I'm on the way out every year, right? So f--k 'em."  

In its defense, Fox argued that Cher's F-word did not come under FCC jurisdiction because it wasn't used to describe sex, but rather to "insult...an individual or group against whom the speaker had deep-seated feelings of ill-will."    

The FCC begged to differ. 

"Cher's use of the 'F-word'...is inextricably linked to the sexual meaning of the term," the agency said. 

The Early Show's "bulls--t" got a pass because it was deigned to have been uttered during a news interview; NYPD Blue got off the hook not because Detective Sipowicz didn't really say "bulls--t" (he did), but because he said it after 10 p.m. (The FCC doesn't oversee what decent or indecent things happen on the airwaves between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.)   

The findings, issued Monday, revisited rulings first handed down last March. Back then, the FCC saw actionable profanity in the offending Early Show and NYPD Blue episodes, just as it did in the Cher and Richie utterances.  

The FCC ruling came at the same time as ones upholding its $550,000 fine of CBS for airing Janet Jackson's right breast during the 2004 Super Bowl, and declaring a 2004 episode of CBS' Without a Trace indecent and—like Jackson's breast—fineable.   

In April, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and Hearst-Argyle Television, an owner of 26 stations, including some that aired NYPD Blue, fired back with lawsuits charging the FCC was out of line.  

Out of that challenge came the new FCC review of the Cher, Richie, Early Show and NYPD Blue cases and, ultimately, the FCC's split decision on F-words and BS-words. 

Fox, broadcast home to the Cher and Richie F-words, was not thrilled with Monday's ruling.     

"[The] decision highlights our concern about the government's inability to issue consistent, reasoned decisions in highly sensitive First Amendment cases," the network said in a statement.

Cher and Richie didn't issue statements. But if they did, one can imagine they'd be full of choice words.