"I'm sorry, Mr Am, I'm going to have to ask you to leave"

Apparently, United Airlines kicked Will I Am out their first class lounge because they didn't believe his ID card was genuine.

"Yes, I can see the photo looks like you, but you're not prattling away on a mobile phone in this picture so I'm not sure it's genuine, sir."

The BBC has announced following this, they're going to ask to have a second look at the credentials claiming Will I Am was some sort of expert before they let him back into the Voice studio.

Battle for Voice judging seats more interesting than The Voice itself

With Jessie J having better things to do, and Danny From The Script having other things to do, there's some excitement at the question of 'who will be the judges when the third series of The Voice happens, as it surely shall, for it is foretold in the Bible'.

No, there really is some excitement. So much so that Paddy Power - the bookies that think kicking a cat is hilarious - have started offering odds on who will be spinning around.

The two incumbents who have yet to quit, Tom Jones and Will I Am, are both 3-1 on.

Beyond that, it's a mix of the plausible and the questionable. So, sure, you could see Olly Murs (10-1) turning up week-in, week-out, but the chances of Adele signing up are surely slimmer than the 12-1 odds suggest.

Likewise, you could perhaps see a world in which an 80-1 punt on Grace Jones could come off (for a couple of shows)... but the same odds on Shane McGowan?

Also: apparently Madonna is as likely to turn up on a Saturday night light entertainment show as Dannii Minogue. Srsly?

[Thanks to Michael M]

Will I Am in space

The playback of that Will I Am song from Mars was quite a historic moment. Not the playing of a track from another planet so much as the breaking of the official record for Most Awkward Reactions At A Playback Ever:

I guess if you're wanting to avoid getting something overblown and pompous to capture the dignity of a key moment in mankind's journey beyond gravity, Will I Am is your go-to guy. I don't want to imply this was just a generic song that Mr Am had kicking around which he just lobbed a few space references into, but I'm given to understand there was an awkward moment when NASA asked on delivery why the file was called possible_pokeman_movie_theme.mp3.

Altogether, now, people:

I know that Mars might be far/
but baby it ain't really that far

Er... yes.

Danny out the Script is now the second-most-famous person on The Voice

Trouble at The Voice, with both Jessie J and Tom Jones finding better things to do with their time instead of joining the next series.

Jessie J is desperately trying to arrange a tour so she has an excuse when the BBC pop round with an invite, while Tom Jones is apparently unable to think of any more anecdotes mentioning Elvis, so really can't see the point.

"I did think I had a tale left about meeting Marvin Gaye" explained Tom, "but then I remembered that I'd used it on the second programme. And, to be frank, the sort of new anecdote I was minting on this show - 'I once had a Nespresso with Danny out the Script' - weren't helping."

Will I Am will almost certainly come back, providing he's allowed to bounce up and down. Mr Am added: "And to go on a train. I wanna go on a train. And have ice cream. Oh - look, there's a pony."

Danny from The Script isn't yet sure he'll be coming back. A friend said "he realises last time he was lucky nobody realised he was only there to drop off a parcel; he doesn't reckon he'd be that jammy twice."

Cheryl Cole was going to work with Michael Jackson, we're asked to believe

DigitalSpy trumpets a jewel lost to the world:

Cheryl Cole, Michael Jackson duet was planned, says will.i.am

Oh, really? Call my a cynic, but I can't imagine that Jackson's list of potential collaborators was so short it needed the woman off the hair adverts to pad it out.

So, what does this "planned duet" actually mean?

"I told Michael Cheryl was the hottest thing in the UK and he was keen to meet her," will.i.am told The People. "I was gonna write them a song."

So, the headline should read:

Cheryl Cole oversold to Michael Jackson, as will i am hoped to score some royalties from an album padding duet somewhere down the line

When Will I Am is the voice of reason

Oh, lord, I hate the idea of nodding in agreement and saying Will I Am has a point, but...:

Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am has criticised plans to release a new Michael Jackson album in November this year.

The star said that previously unheard material should not be made public as it did not have Jackson's blessing.

"How you gonna release Michael Jackson when Michael Jackson ain't here to bless it?" he told the Associated Press news agency.

Unfortunately, Michael Jackson's estate were too busy hosing liquid gold over their genitals to come up with a reply, although Jackson's former manager Frank DeLio was heard to mutter something about dropping the release if some sort of zombie Jackson actually asked him to.

Gordon in the morning: Finally, Cheryl is well enough to have sex (stories written about her)

On a day when you'd have thought the return of the worst bit of Take That to the band (more on which in a moment) would have been the showbiz headline, Gordon instead leads off with some rubbish about Cheryl Tweedy's sex life:

CHERYL TWEEDY has managed her first laugh since she was struck down with malaria - when doctors banned her from having sex.

A bit of Will.i is quite low on her list of priorities at the moment - with staying alive at the top.

But her boyfriend's Derek, isn't it? Why mention... hang about, you're not just making a laboured pun based on "will.i" sounding a little bit like "willy", are you? Surely not?

So on a day when there is actually big news, you've chosen to ignore that and just make a willy joke your lead. I see.

Perez Hilton is a sorry, sorry man

Let us, for a moment, gaze into the black heart of Perez Hilton's soul, as he writes an apology for calling Will I Am a faggot.

Apparently aware that nobody believes a word he says, Hilton spends most of his apology stressing about how he really is apologising, no really, and it's all his idea:

"People make mistakes," he writes. "I have made many in my life, but this past week I have made more than I can count on one hand. I am sorry. And I mean it. No one is forcing me to write this. I am not feeling pressured to say this. I am speaking out because I realize that the last few days have been more hurtful to me - and many others - than the repeated blows I suffered to my head in Toronto this past weekend."

Perhaps, if you're really sorry, you might want to stop going on about how you got hit in the head. Because "I'm sorry, did I mention that I got punched?" seems a little less than genuine.

"I am NOT apologizing to GLAAD," Perez writes. "I could care less about them, my former employers. I am apologizing to the gay community, to anyone who was hurt by my choice of words, and to all the people who have ever emailed me to thank me for all that I have done to fight for gay rights over the last few years."

And that... that seems less to be an apology, more an attempt to try and project yourself as some sort of gay rights crusader, rather than a bloke who - when he thinks nobody is listening - hurls the word "faggot" round like an insult.

It might be easier to believe that Hilton is actually ashamed and sorry had he apologised before TMZ ran the video showing what he did to prompt the attack on him, rather than after.

It might be easier to believe if he didn't keep trying to change the subject to try and make himself the victim:

I am sorry that any good work I have done for promoting equality may be tainted by me reclaiming a hurtful word - that's been personally used against me and the gay community - to hurt someone that was verbally attacking me. It was stupid.

And you know who really needs to take a good hard look at themselves? Erm... everyone else, it turns out:

The "F" word will never be uttered from my lips again. Just as others use the "N" word to insult and hurt - or as part of their everyday speech - I challenge them to remove it from their vocabulary as well.

It's not that you said it, is it? It's that you thought it.

Still. The important thing is he's said sorry, and taken the chance to remind people - did he mention it? - that he got hitted:

Violence is never the answer. Never.

Victims should not be mocked.

To be fair, Perez, I think most of the world was laughing at your reaction - reaching for Twitter - rather than the whole being punched thing.

Pez doesn't want the world incorrectly labelling him homophobic. It's terrible, to do that to someone you know. Oh... hang on a moment... uh-oh, though: haven't you done that in the past?

I have reached out to Isaiah Washington, someone I incorrectly labeled a homophobe in the past, despite his own public statements that he was not.

Oh, well. That's alright, then.

By the way... did Perez Hilton mention what a great lot of good work he does for the gays?

I will be donating any money collected from my lawsuit against Polo Molina, road manager for the Black Eyed Peas, to the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

And I will continue to speak out for equality and support the great work done by LGBT organizations, such as LAMBDA Legal and HRC.

Perez: don't you think everyone might be a little bit better off if you stop speaking out? Maybe just for a little while?

Perhaps Perez brought it on himself

While Perez Hilton might have had the Twitter exclusive on him being beaten up by the soft hands of the Black Eyed Peas, TMZ has the video. Which makes Hilton look a little less of a victim and more of... I believe the phrase is "a total douchebag":

With a crowd surrounding Perez, Will and Will's manager, Polo -- the guys argue back and forth for about a minute, until Perez tells Will, "you're not a fucking artist ... you're a fucking faggot."

This, of course, is the same Perez Hilton who set the world on Miss California for her less-than-open-minded attitudes towards homosexuality, tossing the word "faggot" round like it's an insult. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Violence is never the answer. But you can see why it might have seemed like it.

[Thanks again to Michael M]

Perez Hilton: It's not a crime, it's generating content

At least Perez Hilton is consistent, so that when he hears the sounds of Will I Am's people's hands slapping him, he reaches not for the phone to alert the police, but his blackberry to alert the blogosphere. He Tweeted in pain:

I'm in shock. I need the police ASAP. Please come to the SoHo Metropolitan Hotel now. Please.

I was assaulted by Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas and his security guards. I am bleeding. Please, I need to file a police report. No joke.

Still waiting for the police. The bleeding has stopped. I need to document this. Please, can the police come to the SoHo Met Hotel.

I spoke to my lawyer. I really need to talk to the authorities. Please come to the SoHo Met Hotel. Have called the police. Need them here.

The Toronto police are here now. Thank you. Please stop calling them.

Thank u all from the bottom of my heart for ur concern. The police are investigating the assault now. I did the right thing by reporting it.

I won't be talking about this any further. It is in the hands of the authorities.

What is perhaps best about this is that, even while he's bleeding, Hilton has the wherewithal to make it clear he's talking about Will.I.Am "of the Black Eyed Peas", just in case you thought it might be an artfully punctuated heir to the British throne who was attacking him.

Actually, if Will I Am was attacking me, and I was twittering it, I think I'd probably not bother with those annoying full stops at all. If you're able to do punctuation, it doesn't really suggest very much in the way of urgency about your messages.

It's not clear why Will supposedly attacked Perez Hilton - presumably it'll take Toronto police a while to work their way down the list of plausible motives.

[Thanks to Michael M]

Darkness at 3AM: Pea on Cheryl Cole

Will I Am was asked a stupid question, to which he gave a polite answer, in an exchange along the lines of 'do you think Cheryl Cole is pretty'/'yes I do'. In fact, he said:

"If Cheryl was single, hell yeah! She'd just have to holler. I saw her a few days ago.

"She's doing good - she was looking hot."

This, clearly, is the same way that you tell a bride she looks radiant, or the bloke in the shop that, were you ten years younger, you'd be asking for his mobile number. Trouble is, he said it to the 3AM Girls, who tend to scale politeness up:

She's a Heartbreaker - so who can blame Will.i.am for having a crush on Girls Aloud's Cheryl Cole?

The producer and Black Eyed Peas star was bowled over by Chez, 24, when she flew to LA to record Heartbreaker with him.

Still, we're delighted to discover that William talks a bit like Danny Kelly:

"Hats off to her for holding it together during shooting the video and still being strong while she was working through everything."

Yes. Hats off, indeed. Although Mr. Am then babbles something meaningless:

"She managed it by being creative through adversity."

Or, perhaps, like the rest of us, she had to get on and do her job despite having the hump.

Will I Am introduces the MP3 blog which pays for itself

An impressive turning-on-head of the way webleaks work: Universal is offering a player for embedding in blogs and so on with an obligatory piece of sales widgetry; bloggers get new Will I Am music to offer to their visitors, and, if they spark a sale of a download, get cashback, too.

It's a virtuous circle, apart from the idea of people buying Will I Am tracks at all.
Billy thinks it's a whole new world:

“People are still making music like they're making vinyl and CDs and then the music ends up on the internet,” he says.

“When MTV was launched people made videos for MTV why aren't people making an experience for the internet? This will be the first time someone does that.”

It's not, of course, as it's just an embedded player with affiliate marketing, but what's new is the slightly more conciliatory approach of the record label.

She wasn't lovin' it

Macy Gray didn't want to work with Justin Timberlake, it turns out:

"Will [I Am] and I were doing my album, then he got really, really busy with the Black Eyed Peas touring," she explained. "Then he got really in demand as a producer and had a lot of opportunities he didn't want to turn down. So I was kind of forced to work with other people because he was so busy.

"That is how I ended up going to the studio with Justin; it wasn't in the original plan but it worked out great."

So, then, Timberlake was a plan B, and Will I Am's faith in Gray was so high that as soon as someone called offering three weeks as pigman up Home Farm (or something) he was off. But it "all worked out great" - so great Gray already sounds like someone distancing themselves from the finished product.