Usually The Ashley doesn’t believe much that comes out of OK! Magazine, but this time she will make an exception because she has seen this happen with her own two eyes!

OK! just posted an interview they did with a girl who attended a recent taping of American Idol. Ashley Kauffman, who claims she is about 5’2 and 150 lbs., said she attended the taping with five of her friends. However, only three of the girls (the “skinny ones”) were allowed to sit in the front row, while Ashley and her friend who was “not in a great outfit” were banished to the back!

“There were two ladies and they kind of looked us up and down,” Ashley explained in the article. “One of us was not in a great outfit and the lady said, ‘Oh, I don’t want shorts in front.’ Then she looks at me and goes, ‘Oh no, you’re just too big, too heavy to be in front!’”

“I felt so belittled as a person because of my weight,” Ashley added. “They ended up putting two girls who were super skinny and wearing little dresses in the front row where we would of been sitting. The only people that weren’t really skinny were the families in that section.”

She said that one of the ‘Idol’ ushers, realizing that what had happened was effed up, apologized to her.

Don’t roll your eyes, guys. I’d bet my right arm that this story is completely true. In fact, The Ashley has seen this happen at television show and award show tapings numerous times. You think it’s a coincidence that all of the girls shown screaming in the front row for Scotty while he performs on Idol just happen to be cute, young and pretty?

Think about it; when’s the last time you saw a 37-year-old tubby soccer mom in the front row of American Idol? Or Dancing With the Stars? Or The Bachelor reunion specials? Yeah, that’s what I thought. It doesn’t happen. As a person who has been in more than her share of television show audiences, I can tell you what does happen:

While you’re in the holding area before you go into the studio a few snotty production assistants start scanning the group of seat fillers to find girls with pretty faces, cute outfits and bubbly personalities. Even if you’re already seated, they will often move you around, so that the cutest girls and trendiest guys are seated at the end of the rows and smack in the middle (prime camera locations).

Sure, sometimes they’re nice about it and tell you that they are booting you to the back because “Your shirt clashes with the one the girl next to you is wearing,” or something like that, but if you’re fat, or dressed in ‘boring’ clothes, or just generally unpleasant looking, you’re going to be hidden in the back.

At one ‘Idol’ finale, The Ashley was seated next to a girl who was young and skinny, but rather plain-looking (I don’t know how else to put it). The producer asked us if we were together, and I said no, and she said, “Good, because this girl needs to be moved.” She replaced her with a chick that looked like Miley Cyrus.

The plain girl was moved to the very back in the “no camera” zone. It was so sad, and the lady didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was moving the girl because she was, um, plain-looking.

Anyway, the photo above is of the girl from the OK! interview I think she’s totally cute and what happened to her is just plain wrong. However, this is Hollywood…they never play nice.

Update: American Idol has responded to this story. You can read their side of the story here.