Regret the Error

On Thursday the Trentonian newspaper reported about a New Jersey radio DJ who had a heated exchange with Ryan Seacrest about whether or not he was gay. From the story:

“Ryan,” Carton said, “Are you gay?”
Silence.
“Ryan, are you a homosexual?”
With that, Seacrest was headed for the door.
“I can’t stay here, man,” Seacrest said. “I gotta jet.”
The “American Idol” star stormed out of the studio and into the NJ-101.5 offices, but he was coaxed back into the studio with the understanding that the rest of the interview would center on the television show and not on his personal life.
“This was supposed to be about the show, about ‘American Idol,’” Seacrest said when he returned to the air.
Co-host Ray Rossi, an admitted “Idol” fan, was ready to move on, but Carton wouldn’t let up.
“Are you gonna walk out again if I ask you about it?” Carton asked Seacrest.
“Absolutely. I’m outta here,” said Seacrest.
Immediately, Carton asked “Are you gay?” “You know,” Seacrest said, “I don’t know why I trusted you.”
And, again, Seacrest was out the door, this time for good.

Pretty shocking, huh? Well, it was a prank. That wasn’t Seacrest on the air; it was an impersonator. As a story in Newsday noted, this isn’t the first time this radio show has pulled a prank. “During yesterday’s show, Carton recalled the duo’s interview three years ago with singer Bobby Darin, who had died 30 years earlier,” it noted.
“Carton also promised that listeners can expect another scam three years from now.”
As is frequently the case, the story spread from the Trentonian to other papers such as the Philly Daily News and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Gawker also noted the item. The DJ later revealed the interview was a fake, causing several outlets to run corrections. We’ve noted some below. One problem, however, is that the Trentonian’s original, incorrect story is still on their site without any correction appended. (The paper did run a corrective article, which is excerpted below.)

Dan Gross would like to apologize to Ryan Seacrest and to Daily News readers for an incorrect report in his Thursday column. It was not
Seacrest, the host of Fox’s “American Idol,” who stormed out of an interview with New Jersey 101.5 Wednesday afternoon. It was an imposter. “Jersey Guys” hosts Craig Carton and Ray Rossi were interviewing a Seacrest impersonator when they repeatedly asked whether the TV star were gay.

Seacrest’s publicist Meredith O’Sullivan told Gross yesterday her client has never done an interview with New Jersey 101.5, but had nothing else to say about the radio prank. Link

An item in Friday’s Peach Buzz about American Idol host Ryan Seacrest storming out of a radio interview was incorrect. New Jersey 101.5 did an interview with a man pretending to be Seacrest as a hoax, according to the Philadelphia Daily News, the original source of the information. Link

You know how it didn’t really make sense that Ryan Seacrest would be doing a live, in-studio radio interview in New Jersey? And how it didn’t really make sense why, after the first time he walked out of the studio because the DJ asked about his sexuality, he would have agreed to continue the interview? Yeah, well, it now makes sense that it didn’t make sense. Because it turns out it didn’t actually happen… Link

We were scammed. Local radio station New Jersey-101.5 pulled an on-air prank Wednesday afternoon and we fell for it.
So did other media outlets from New York to Philadelphia and beyond — including The Trentonian.
During Wednesday’s “Jersey Guys” broadcast, host Craig Carton told listeners that television’s “American Idol” host, Ryan Seacrest, was there inside
the Ewing studio as part of a publicity tour for the show.
Yesterday, however, Carton revealed that the whole thing had been a hoax and that he’d enlisted someone with a similar-sounding voice to act the part of Seacrest.
Listeners – and media outlets – were fooled by Wednesday’s fake interview… Link