With the exception of Clay Aiken's metamorphosis from spiky-haired, bespectacled pencil-neck to chipmunk-cheeked, makeup-spackled, uncloseted bottle-blonde, the transformation of Jennifer Hudson is perhaps the most gabbed-about contestant makeover in American Idol history.

At first, she was unfortunately overlooked when she appeared in season 3 of the show--her demure clothing, quiet personality, and unflatteringly Justin Guarini-esque hairdo upstaged by flashier competing divas like Fantasia Barrino and LaToya London. Then, when she landed the starmaking role of Effie in the film Dreamgirls, she had to add 20 pounds to her already much-scrutinized figure. But somehow J.Hud still managed to do the impossible--upstage her co-star Beyonce. And her evolution from AmIdol also-ran to A-list movie star was complete (despite the controversial gold bolero jacket she wore when she accepted her Academy Award, a garment that landed her on many worst-dressed Oscar lists).

Jennifer's appearance is

Concerned regular Reality Rocks readers may be wondering where I've been the last couple weeks. Did I forget to pay my cable bill or something? Was I rendered helpless when I lost my remote? Nah. I've just been on vacation. My DVR hard-drive is fixing to burst with programs recorded during my sabbatical, and I'm still playing catchup. So far I've learned that Neal E. Boyd won America's Got Talent (a victory well-deserved); Hoopz won $250,000 on I Love Money (a much better grand prize than a gold grill from Flavor Flav); crazy Cloris Leachman and her crazy cleavage have yet to be eliminated from Dancing With The Stars; and former I Love New York suitors Real and Chance, aka the Stallionaires, are finally getting their own spinoff dating show, Real Chance Of Love (the best homecoming present ever--thank you, VH1!). But don't tell me what's happening on Top Pop Group or Rock Of Love: Charm School, because I haven't watched those yet, OK?

So anyway, I spent my vacation in England. Thanks

I love the Cure. The Cure is my favorite band of all time. The Cure changed my life. (Click here to get details on my incurable Curesickness.)

Anyway, you know what ELSE I love? A little show called Dancing With The Stars. And I love Lacey Schwimmer, who is Lance Bass's partner this season and a shoo-in for the DWTS finale.

So anyway, seeing the music of the Cure soundtracking the quicksteps of Lacey and Lance on DWTS last week SHOULD have been a real synergistic, two-great-tastes-that-taste-great-together kind of moment for me. But you know, I'm just not so sure...

Why has this been bothering me since last week? I don't quite know. But I do know if anyone on DWTS starts cha-cha-ing to Joy Division or waltzing to Bauhaus or Western-swinging to Siouxsie & The Banshees this week, I may have to stop watching Dancing With The Stars altogether...

Last night VH1's The Cho Show aired its season finale (already???), leaving an aching void in my heart and on my DVR hard-drive that can't possibly be filled--except maybe by the upcoming Rock Of Love: Charm School. We shall see. Margaret is a tough act to follow.

Anyway, it was a great (if all-too-brief) series, and one of its highlights was when the absolutely fabulous Margaret Cho enlisted the talents of superstar producers Desmond Child (Bon Jovi, Roxette, "Who Let The Dogs Out?") and Andreas Carlsson (Britney Spears, *NSYNC, Clay Aiken) to make her own foray into heavily ProTooled prefab pop.

The result was her own sex-kittenish, Britney-esque jam (which kicks off with the familiar declaration, "It's Margaret, bitch!"), a sure-to-be-smash-hit single ingeniously titled "I Cho' Am A Woman":

The Making Of "I Cho' Am A Woman"

Call your local radio station and request it now!

OK, regular Reality Rocks readers know I was totally Team Cook when it came to the season 7 finale of American Idol. I just never understood David Archuleta's appeal, or why 19 and Fox so blatantly pegged him as the Golden Boy from pretty much the instant he auditioned. And I was never shy about expressing my anti-Archie opinions in this blog space, which resulted in an influx of hatemail from irate Archie fans ("ArchAngels," or whatever they call themselves). I'll still trying to read it all...so be patient, haters.

Anyway, my biggest (and I think most valid) complaint when it came Archie was he never seemed relevant to me, in terms of what's going on in the pop marketplace today. But I saw some potential for him--a place for Lil' David amid all the Lil' Waynes and Lil' Mamas and lil' tween stars--when he performed "Apologize" with OneRepublic on the AmIdol season 7 finale. Suddenly he seemed less like a stage-parented, theater-schooled kiddie robot, and more like an

Guys, I know this is going to come as a bit of a shocker, so I hope you're sitting down before you continue reading. But (deep breath, now)...Clay Aiken has confirmed, in an interview featured on the cover of the upcoming issue of People magazine and first leaked on Perez Hilton's site, that he is indeed (wait for it), homosexual.

All right, all right...so this isn't the biggest news scoop in tabloid history. This is sort of akin to reporting that Chris Daughtry is bald, or that David Cook uses hair gel, or that Ruben Studdard shops at Big & Tall For Men. It's always been that obvious. But this is the first time that Clay has actually acknowledged it, so I for one am thrilled that he has set the record straight (no pun intended).

For years, practically from the minute he reared his bespectacled head on season 2 of American Idol, Clay has skirted (again, no pun intended) around this issue--even telling Diane Sawyer herself that she was "really rude" to grill him about his sexuality

Hey, remember The White Rapper Show on VH1? No? C'mon, it was only, oh, the raddest show EVER. An (ultimately futile) search for the Next Eminem, one of the program's most memorable contestants was first-runner-up John Brown, the self-declared "King Of The 'Burbs" and proponent/leader/sole member of some vague "Ghetto Revival" movement.

But now John's moved out of the 'burbs and ghetto and into the national sphere, with a topical new manifesto titled "Sarah Palin (I Wanna Lay Pipe)." Surely even his politically minded White Rapper Show rival Jus' Rhyme would be impressed by this:

Hallelujah hollaback!

This week, 4-year-old America's Got Talent contestant Kaitlyn Maher performed the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There." That's a tough, octave-spanning song for even an adult to tackle (Mariah Carey is one of the few capable of doing that), and really probably the only CHILD who could do it justice is little Michael Jackson (who was 11, not a toddler, when he recorded the original).

As usual, Kaitlyn was a button-nosed cutie, but she was clearly waaaay out of her depth:

Meanwhile, the big man with the big voice, Neal E. Boyd, took on one of the most showoffy, going-for-gold ballads in the TV-talent-show songbook, Eric Carmen's "All By Myself." And he sang it opera-style. And he was NOT out of HIS depth:

So last night, when the five AGT finalists were announced, the contestants were summoned to the stage in faceoff pairs...and it came down to a showdown between Kaitlyn and Neal.

And I sat there, remote control in my white-knuckled hand, muttering to myself and/or no one in particular: