Carly's Teri Hatcher Moment

I’m good for two or three votes when I like someone on American Idol. But I got nothing on Teri Hatcher. The Desperate Housewives star and Idol fanatic had her cell phone in overdrive for last week’s castoff, Carly Smithson. Thank goodness voting starts after 9 p.m.!

“She came over and said to me, ‘I voted for you 60 times last night,’” Carly revealed when she stopped by the office on Monday. “That’s pretty cool.”

Now that she’s returning home, Carly looks forward to finishing the geisha tattoo on her right arm. “I love everything about Japan and I think that geisha’s are just beautiful.” The design has a snake woven through it because, “my husband Todd (who was with Carly during her visit!), says I look like Medusa when I wake up in the morning because I’ve got this curly hair and it’s always like these mad snakes.”

The 24-year-old Irish chanteuse is also itching to record her next album. She recorded her first, Ultimate High, for MCA records in 2001. Carly, who was signed to the label as a teen, stressed it wasn’t the millions of dollars deal the media has hyped. “Who spends $2.2. million on a 15-year-old?,” she laughed. “I know for a fact that I drove a Volkswagen Golf that my dad bought. They said I was driving some ritzy convertible.” During the show, Carly survived through the frenzied press with support from her Idol counterparts, David Cook and Michael Johns. “Other contestants that had records and deals were so angry that I was being lashed out on, so they were really supportive,” she said, then added reflectively, “They say any publicity is good publicity.”