Michael Becker / FOXFor Anoop Desai, number 13 proved to be lucky. For his fans, and to the complete surprise of American Idol producers, it may just get them lucky.
Apparently Simon Cowell was not fibbing when he claimed last week that it was a last-minute decision to make this season's Idol a 13-horse race, as it was uncovered just yesterday that the would-be dial-in number to vote for the late addition is actually a sex line.
"Crap, were gonna have a problem on Idol tonight—just dialed 1-866-IDOLS-13 and its not quite SFW," scandalized host Ryan Seacrest twittered this morning.
The number, along with its IDOLS-00 counterpart, brings the unassuming voter to the following message:
"Hey there, sexy guy...Hot horny girls are waiting right now to talk to you. Lie back, baby. Relax..."
You know, the opposite of what Idol producers are doing right now.
Even without the threat of X-rated interactions, Idol voters have proven themselves to be unreliable dialers. So now with the added impediment, producers have unveiled a one-time-only phone number for those wishing to vote for tonight's final performer.
"We have a special Idol number tonight that we will be revealing on the show," producer Megan Michaels told Seacrest this morning. "It will not be that...we have to be sure people dial carefully tonight."
As for Seacrest's Herculean task of explaining to Idol's predominantly underage voters why one of those dialing numbers is not like the others…
"We will not allude to the fact of [IDOLS-]13, because we don't want to endorse that, you know?" Michaels said.
Adding insult to telephonic injury, Seacrest issued one final, uh, blow.
"Who calls those numbers? This woman doesn't even sound hot."
And just in case tonight's show isn't scandalous enough, the Top 13 contestants will be performing the songs of controversial comeback king Michael Jackson.
(Originally published March 10, 2009 at 9:38 a.m. PT.)