No American Idol alum is safe on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Less than two weeks after Ellen DeGeneres scared the living daylights out of Season 4 champion Carrie Underwood, the daytime talk show host pulled a similar prank on Season 5 finalist Kellie Pickler Tuesday. Pickler appeared on the show to promote her CMT reality series, I Love Kellie Pickler, which features a recent trip to Tokyo. "Have you ever been to Japan? You have to go!" the "Someone Somewhere Tonight" singer gushed. "I'm pretty much a local now."
Pickler said her trip was an "incredible" experience. "You know, I always feel it's respectful to try to learn as much of the language as you can, so I'm pretty fluent in Japanese now," the bubbly blond singer joked. "Well, I know the most important word is 'kanpai,' which is 'cheers.'"
At the beginning of her trip, Pickler realized she hadn't yet mastered the language. "I was learning how to say 'hello,' 'thank you,' 'excuse me,' 'where's the bathroom'—you know, the basics," she said. At one point, she was standing on the street corner when an elderly woman and her dog approached. "Her dog's sniffing my feet, so I'm patting her little pup. I thought I had 'hello' down. I think it's...is it 'konnichiwa'? But I said, 'Kowasaki.' I was like, Kowasaki! Your dog is so precious!'" Pickler said. "She gave me this look—like a 'bless her heart' kind of a look." Luckily, Pickler and the local laughed it off and shared a "sweet little moment on the sidewalk."
One of the best parts of the trip, Pickler said, was enjoying the nightlife in Tokyo. "They know how to throw it down, I'm telling you. They can party!" she said. "You go into these tiny little bars and you can fit like five, six people. You're packed in like sardines in there, but you have this intimate atmosphere where you can have fun with the bartenders. It's just so wonderful." After leaving a bar one night, Pickler chuckled when she came across a man in a suit and tie who was "using his briefcase as a pillow on his work-step." At the time, she thought, "'That's responsible. He's going to clock in before anybody else does!' He was ready to go to work."
During her time in Tokyo, Pickler also got to dress up as a geisha, "which was so wonderful." Just as she was beginning to tell her story, a geisha popped out of the coffee table, causing Pickler to scream. "Ahh! Oh, my God! Jesus!" she said. "What the hell was that?...Oh, my God!"
After calming down, a frightened Pickler asked, "Where'd it go?"
DeGeneres just laughed and then replayed the footage.
"Let's take a look," she told Pickler. "I think that was a good one."