This is a guest post by Richard Rushfield, the author of American Idol: The Untold Story. For three years Richard has covered American Idol for the Los Angeles Times, writing hundreds of columns and conducting thousands of interviews with cast and crew. He is currently an entertainment columnist for The Daily Beast, a Vanity Fair contributing editor, and author of its long-running “Intelligence Report” column. For more information please visit http://www.richardrushfield.com/ and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

Idol was perhaps the first show on television to have as much of a life off the screen as on.   These days we are used to The Hills girls, Bachelor contestants, Real Housewives and Jersey Shore housemates seeing their dramas spill over from the shows that made them famous to the covers of the tabloids and the greater celeb-obsessed blogosphere.

But when Idol debuted on the US airwaves in 2002, such a phenomenon was relatively unknown.  The internet was still in its infancy and network programming was a remote, pristine world, largely untouched by the hurly burly press.

What brought Idol out of its shell was the steady stream of scandals it provided as fodder for the ravenous new media.  Each year it seemed, some gotcha shattered Idol’s peace; some disqualification brought it face to face with the public beast.

Ten years later, the stream of scandals doesn’t seem to have hurt entertainment’s greatest juggernaut.  If anything, the blow-ups have kept us all talking about the show, even when the singing got a little dull.

Here then, in order of appearance, are the ten greatest scandals of Idol’s first decade:

[Click on any scandal to get started.]

© 2011 Richard Rushfield, author of American Idol: The Untold Story

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Want to win a copy of Richard’s book? It’s easy. To enter, head over to our Facebook page and cast your vote for American Idol’s biggest star of all time. Simply open the American Idol photo album and “like” the Idol contestant’s photo of your choice to vote. Then, not only will we finally prove to the world that Clay Aiken wasn’t the biggest thing to come from Idol, but we’ll randomly draw two (2) people to take home the prize and announce them on Facebook tomorrow, January 19th, just in time for the season 10 premiere!!

When you think about it (and maybe after 3 cups of coffee, two red bulls and a bowl of cocoa puffs you’d draw this connection too) Hollywood is kind of like a continuation of high school. All the pretty girls get to hang out together and the weird girls get thrown out of the slumber party just because they brought their stuffed elephant named Sammie. Oh and the whole gossip, secrets, lies, and rumors stuff thrives in Hollywood, just like it did in the high school halls.

Hollywood is full of secrets…and publicists who get paid the big bucks to slowly leak those secrets to US weekly, OK, and Lifestyle. But sometimes, we find a celebrity, who for some reason doesn’t want the public to know about a deep dark secret. Then one day they wake up and decide they want to share their secret with the world, preferably on the cover of People, but they’re willing to accept any major tabloid. But most of the time, it seems that these big shocking secrets aren’t all that shocking. In fact they probably would’ve been better off leaking them before every other blogger on the internet posted something about it.

Need some proof that celebrity’s have no real secrets?  Just click on anyone below to start believing.

Catch Jay Leno at 10 pm…every weeknight.

Gmail: now with to-do lists!

Homegirl lights her cheating husband’s junk on fire.

Clay Aiken kissed a boy, and he liked it.

Brrrr, it’s cold out there! Stay beautiful in the winter with these tips.

Want equal rights? Call in “gay” to work tomorrow.

Bah humbug about Hanukkah? We feel you.

Take criticism gracefully.

Everyone loves LiLo’s leggings.

Whoops! An NFL wardrobe malfunction.

Exploring all the pop cultural guilty pleasures, memorable products and people, disgraces and debuts, fads and fashions, scandals and sensations.

With clever and over-animated comedians dissecting and reflecting on everything from metrosexuals to Dance Dance Revolution to Sudoku, you can’t help but giggle at the off the wall and politically incorrect observations. In honor of the show, I decided to take a yummy walk down pop-culture memory lane from 2000-2004. Here are some of my personal favorite memories from the new millennium…and the ones I despise.

New Millennium Favs:

Napster- The inspiring illegal innovation that started it all. Thank you, Shawn Fanning, for changing the musical and digital landscape.

Uggs- I don’t care how hideous they are and how far-gone the trend is, these babies keep my tootsies toasty on the way to class or, if I’m feeling really lazy, at the bar.

Crazy astronaut lady- The mildly-disturbed NASA astronaut reaffirmed my faith in equal opportunity insanity by proving that not just us common folk, but also those blessed with insanely high IQ’s, can go absolutely bonkers and lose their marbles.

Tivo & DVR- Oh, how sweet it is.

Zoolander- This brilliant satirical Ben Stiller flick poked fun at male models, the fashion industry, and most importantly, gave us ‘Blue Steel’.

iPod- What exactly did we do before these magical pocket-sized miracles? Does anyone remember the Discman? I rest my case.

Harry Potter- I’ve never read the books nor seen the movies, but anything that gets kids excited about reading is kick-ass.

New Millennium Not-So-Favs:

Fauxhawk- Along with popped collars and trucker hats. Please…no more.

The rise of Bill O’Reilly- Radically right wing, this guy always reminds me of someone’s delusional, deranged grandpa, spurting and mumbling nonsensical absurdities and ranting about the downfall of society.

Janet’s Boob Pop- The drama surrounding the infamous areola accident was overblown and nauseating. Seriously, can everyone please get over nipple spillage incidents? (Editor’s Note: We have much larger word issues to worry about…like the rise in vagina flashing, lately!) Fifty percent of the world population has a set of female breasts; let’s not be fourth graders about this.

“Wazzzup” commercial- This commercial was amusing for about five seconds — before every frat boy, soccer mom and middle-aged business man drove it straight into the ground.

Big Mouth Billy Bass, The Singing Fish- Much like a hungover person awakes to question and regret their behavior the previous evening, I can only hope that the millions of people who bought this highly annoying novelty product soon came to their senses and tossed that fish back to sea (sorry, couldn’t resist).

“I’m Rick James, bitch”- Though I was a huge fan of the Dave Chappelle show (before he lost his mind and moved to Africa), this overused Chappelle-ism became a part of our daily lexicon and managed to become one of those uber-annoying catch phrases.

Clay Aiken & William Hung- I don’t get it. I’ve never gotten it. And I want it to go away.

No, not that way. Come on.

Aiken has artificially inseminated his “best friend” and producer, Jaymes Foster, who is in her late 40’s. Clay has even decided to be a father in earnest (no, not that way) and help raise the little tyke. The baby is due in August, which means that they’ve managed to keep this under wraps for a while now.

I would like to offer my congratulations to the future parents. And so, as a gift (for some reason, I wasn’t invited to the baby shower) I’m going to give Clay some advice on how not to horribly scar and embarrass his child.

1. Don’t Smile.

You’ve recently bought a new smile, Clay, but I’m sorry, adding huge ceramic teeth to an already startlingly creepy face is a bad move. If you catch your infant child unawares, he may think that you are a beaver monster and never trust you again.

2.Stay on Broadway as long as you can, especially if it means that you don’t have time to record a new album. Spamalot is the most unironically brilliant job for you and it has a certain cool, broadway cache that your child will find a lot cooler than all of the middle-aged fan clubs you’ve inspired.

3.Get a haircut. Okay, this is more for my sake than for your child’s. But I promise Clay Jr. will appreciate it too. When your hair style has been unfavorably compared to Phil Spector’s in the height of his crazy, it’s time to try something new.

4. Don’t let your child get on the internet. Ever. At least don’t let him or her do a google image search with your name if you want to maintain any sort of authority. While you are setting some ground rules, outlaw this video, too.

I know this may have come off as a little harsh, but such is the nature of celebrity. In all seriousness, I’m sure that Clay will be a lovely parent, singing to his child constantly. Which reminds me…

5. Don’t sing to your child constantly. You have a lovely voice, so everyone once and a while is okay, but don’t be like so many other musical artists who feel compelled to sing things that they could easily just say.

Clay Aiken is having a baby. With a women. Which is weird. Someone call Maury or direct these two to a Duane Reade.

Douchiest douche in the world

Nick Hogan, I hate you. Are you basically blaming your friend for his current vegetable status? Because he’s a negative person? That’s why he’ll never be able to feed himself again? Oh, and make sure Daddy sets you up a with a “real-ality” show the second that you’re out. DOUCHE.

Fashion

The Good

I’m loving SJP’s dress at the New York premiere of the “Sex and the City” movie .

The Bad

Is Kim Cattrall’s the worst look of the week? The dress has pockets, does something weird at the breasts, I hate the length and the shoes – ugh.

Hottie of the Week

John Mayer’s Penis. This is week old news you say? Nay, I say. A big penis never gets old.

Song of the Week

Again, it’s Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major “Lollipop”.

In news that’s totally not news, Ashlee Simpson is knocked up.

Kim Kardashian’s ass: is it real? Is it fake? Why is she famous again? Oh, right…

Pirates are nothing like Johnny Depp in real life

Politics

Obama is in fantastic health. Did you release this so that John McCain might indeed look like a ‘wal-mart greeter’ in everyone’s eyes?

George Clooney is single again. But he’s 47. And even if you find him attractive, you’re never gonna date him anyway. Sorry to be a buzz kill.

Mmmmmm. That’s the stuff.

As if Justin Timberlake could actually bring sexy back looking like this, or dancing like this, Clay says (in that weird, southern drawl) “move over JT, there’s a new Sexy-Bringer-Backer in town,” at his recent live performances.

Here is the real sexiness doing a cover of last summer’s biggest hit; I dare you NOT to get turned on.

Wow. This could be the gayest thing ever in the history of everything. Is this supposed to be funny and/or arousing? Cause it’s not. Especially disturbing is how the “Claymates” (yes, they do exist) are responding to Clay. They’re LOVING IT. They’re eating it up. Do you hear the blood-curdling screams? We have future pro-FemiMen’s in the making, and it’s not good.

If you’re not hot ‘n’ bothered enough, check out Clay doing his awesome medley of cover tunes, a.k.a, the best ten minutes and forty seconds of my life.

Does anyone have a towel? This is all so hot, I’m sweating.

I thought the writing was terrible, the songs were worse, and the acting was mind-numbingly bad. Granted, it was written for kids, and I guess it was fine for someone just wheening themselves off Sesame Street and the Disney Channel, but when it comes to the over-16 crowd who worship the movie, I just don’t understand.

Another thing I don’t understand is the magical pull of Zac Efron.

I mean, he kind of looks like he’s made of wax. A 12-year-old wax figurine. I know he’s almost 20, but he sure doesn’t look it, and if it wasn’t all over the place that he was dating what’s-her-name, I’d bet $100 dollars his ass was gay.

So why is he so famous? I think it’s the same reason Sanjaya and Clay Aiken (two boys who should just give up and step out of the closet) were /are so popular. Tween girls love guys who look harmless, sweet, and perfectly groomed.

These guys look into the camera lovingly, have non-threatening voices, bust out vaugely—but not too—sexual dance moves and always seem completely drug free. They’re male candy; sweet and sugary and manufactured.

I suppose I can understand the Tween love affair with Mr. “Cupie Doll” Efron. When I was that age, my walls were covered in Leonardo DiCaprio pictures. Covered. I was in love with his boyish face, his skinny frame, and his almost feminine hair…looking back on it now, I find it hard to see the allure of a pubescent looking 20-something, but that’s because at this age, I’m looking for a man. Someone who knows how to pay their taxes and make dinner and beat up someone for my affection.

Every time I look at Efron, I feel like I might have to stand next to him at the urinal and make sure he isn’t intimidated.

So if you’re 12, I say, go on and moon over the boy.

But if you’re pushing 21 and still think he’s dreamy…you might want to flip off the Mouse Ears channel. It’s brainwashing you.

Uh. Okay. If by understand woman you mean emulate their hair styles and songs, than sure. I’m with ya, Sanjy. Your face certainly looks womanly. You’ve got some of the best un-collagened lips I’ve seen on a celebrity in quite some time, and that voice is definitely reminiscent of a female warble. I mean, Justin Timberlake has a high voice, but you take the squeaky cake.

“I got teased in school because people figured I must be gay because I understand women” Sanjy is quoted as saying in the article, “I think that’s why guys didn’t like me – because I got along with girls so well. When I went up to girls they would give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek like I was their gay friend. But I was the straight guy that understood them.”

Love ya, but I must question your logic here, Sanjy. In all my years on this planet, I have never met a straight guy who understood me as well as a gay guy. Straight guys aren’t programmed to understand women. Even straight guys who’ve grown up in female heavy households. Just because a dude lives with sisters and a mom doesn’t mean he suddenly understands all there is about being feminine. Sure, he probably gets exposed to things like periods and crying and overflowing closets a littler earlier than other guys, but it’s not like he grows support boobs or gets empathy cramps. I’m sure you’re a very sensitive guy, Sanjy, but if girls are treating you like a gay friend…you might want to reevaluate.

Sweetheart, I know you’re young. And I know there are a lot of people telling you what to do right now to maintain that sliver of fame, but don’t be afraid to be who you are! Don’t do the Clay Aiken, honey. Don’t pretend you’re not what everyone (except mildly dense 12-year-old girls) can clearly see you are. Being gay is nothing to be ashamed of.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you truly are the one straight guy in America who really understands women. Maybe you were completely unaware of the fact that you were singing a Bonnie Raitt song, a song that is extremely feminine in every which way, the night you got kicked off Idol. Maybe you’re just a sweet and unassuming teenager whose innocence is often confused with flamboyance.

I mean, maybe.

Just don’t expect me to be surprised when you come out with your own body glitter and make-up line.