American Idol finalist Katharine McPhee cancelled all press appearances yesterday, a day after admitting she had battled an eating disorder. The runner-up was scheduled to appear with other Idol contestants for press interviews, but the “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” singer was a no-show. McPhee went public with her battle with bulimia in the latest edition of American magazine People. The 22-year-old was also scheduled to be interviewed by several US entertainment TV shows, but cancelled at the last minute without explanation. - IMDB

LATEST: AMERICAN IDOL finalist KATHARINE MCPHEE cancelled all press appearances yesterday (22JUN06), a day after admitting she had battled an eating disorder. The runner-up was scheduled to appear with other Idol contestants for press interviews, but the SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW singer was a no-show. MCPhee went public with her battle with bulimia in the latest edition of American magazine People. The 22-year-old was also scheduled to be interviewed by several US entertainment TV shows, but cancelled at the last minute without explanation.
23/06/2006 03:38 - Contact Music

She’s front page news on IMDB news. Just below Cameron Diaz and Nicole Kidman… wow, such press coverage!

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What?! Why? What’s going on?!

A lot of people on the boards are calling this cancellation of appearances a “publicity/PR stunt”. 

I’m not sure why she cancelled her public appearances. It could be that she was still vulnerable or she didn’t want to “steal the limelight” away from the other contestants in case they called this her way of asking for attention and overshadowing the other Idol finalists.

Maybe she didn’t expect it to be such big news. She’s naive in that sense. That’s why she’s always being mis-quoted. Who would think that something that she’s been battling with would reach CNN headline news or even front page of Yahoo and MSN and other news sources world wide? Maybe she realised it was too big for her to handle and she didn’t want to be mis-quoted in the press. Either way, I still think it’s a touchy subject. It does intrigue me now to find out the reason for her unavailability. Apparently, she was “busy rehearsing”… Oh dear.

I would also think that if she was asked to answer questions on television and knowing interviewers they ask a lot of questions, it may have been too overwhelming for her. Who knows, maybe she might’ve broken down and cried so it’s good that she’s taking this slowly. Maybe she doesn’t want this to turn into some big sympathy thing either, where people will buy her single because of her “story”? Which I respect her for by the way… I think it’s a good move.

Plus she’s still on the early road to recovery… so taking things slowly is better than launching into it and sounding all confident about having “recovered” when it might not be the case.

Is this a positive thing or a negative thing? Not coming out and clarifying her viewpoint. I think she’s already stated a point. Hmm… some people are questioning her ability to perform on the gruelling American Idol Summer Tour… that kicks off July 5. Some say she might be using this to get out of tour obligations but I don’t think she would. She seemed genuinely excited to meet fans on the tour. Whatever it is, let us not speculate.

Someone just mentioned that if she talked about it now, no one would buy the magazines and then nobody will buy the magazine because to them, it would be stale news. I don’t think they expected this to be so big. Maybe Katharine thought no one would be THAT interested but we are, Kat. We are.

It is definitely a strategic and smart move for her to have cancelled her appearances. Thinking about it now, although I was excited about her appearances I never thought about how big it might become or how they might grill her about her personal problems and so I think she wants to make sure she’s prepared for it mentally.

Anyway, I’m going round in circles. So far the press has been positive and supportive. She’s definitely advocating something bigger and better. Only the non-fans are screaming ”liar’… idiots. 

I’m tired… ARGH!!! Not enough sleep….