Cowell was 'mortified' by how his reaction looked

"American Idol" is on the verge of a major charitable project, the long gestating Idol Gives Back, but Ken Warwick isn't surprised to be discussing Simon Cowell's rolling eyes instead.

For those who missed Tuesday (April 17) night's "American Idol," here's what transpired: Contestant Chris Richardson finished a performance of "Mayberry" and listened to criticisms from all three judges about his nasal-heavy vocal style. Not content to let the complaints stand, Richardson protested that singing out of his nose was a stylistic choice, earning immediate ire from snarky judge Simon Cowell. Richardson, a Virginia native, made a transition to a sign of sympathy for the victims of this week's massacre at Virginia Tech. The show cut to Cowell, who seemed to be rolling his eyes at Richardson's sincere tribute. Naturally, the Internet was instantly all a-buzz about Cowell's apparently disrespectful gesture.

"Basically, the show makes news," Warwick says. "There's always something happening and someone will always try to make something out of nothing, no matter what it is. The fact is that if he had rolled his eyes in answer to Chris' statement and done it consciously, then he would have had something to answer to."

Warwick, though, insists that Cowell had no malicious intent.

His explanation: "Simon didn't hear him. It's as easy as that. It's quite difficult when the contestants are talking on their lap mic, for Simon to hear them and he was wound up because Chris, in truth, was talking about singing through his nose, which Simon hates with a vengeance. And for Chris to say, 'Oh, it's a deliberate way of singing and I did it on purpose,' Simon just kind of turned off and was reacting to that. He didn't hear."

Warwick continues, "He turned around and he was rolling his eyes at the fact that Chris had come back with such an inane... And that was it. I mean, he was mortified afterwards."

It turns out that the judges' speaker system rarely allows them to properly hear contestants' comments over the din of the crowd and that the judges frequently have to resort to their own little conversations and the director just happened to cut to Cowell at the wrong moment.

"That's the way you cut it -- you go between Ryan and whoever's singing, back to the judges, back to the singer, back to the judges, back to Ryan, back to the judges, back to the wide shot," says Warwick, who claims that he didn't notice the eye-roll in the booth. "So that's just the normal way of cutting that. It was not a deliberate ploy to cut back for any particular anything other than just a shot of the judges."

While Warwick uses the word "mortified" over and over in describing Cowell's post-show reaction, he maintains that none of the producers advised the judge to make his own nod to Virginia Tech tragedy at the show's conclusion.

"He was planning he was going to say something anyway," Warwick says. "I mean, he's not that good at making statements like this off the cuff, but he does everything off the cuff, so it wasn't the most lucid statement in the world, but it was always planned that Ryan would do it in the cold opening and the judges would say something at the end."

The veteran "Idol" producer says that Cowell's gesture will be mentioned on Wednesday night's episode as part of the standard recap of the previous show, but as of mid-day, no extensive apology or explanation was planned. All Warwick wants people to know is that Cowell was not making light of a horrible situation.

"He's be the biggest fool on television if he did that and he's not a fool, believe me."