Taylor Hicks and His Maybe-Fake Girlfriend

HICKY COVER-UP Taylor(Photo: Getty Images)

Diehard fans of American Idol winner Taylor Hicks were no doubt disappointed to learn that the hokey singer was unceremoniously dropped from Sony-BMG imprint J Records early this week. While for most of us Hicks' flirtation with relevancy ended as soon as his stint on Idol did, the details of the poor-selling crooner's love life apparently still hold a rather curious fascination over his small but rabid fanbase, as we briefly chronicled in Radar's February 2008 issue.

For the 99 percent of you unfamiliar with the minutiae of Hicks' post-Idol existence, a quick recap (read the full story here): In May 2007, Hicks was spotted frolicking incognito in the Hawaiian surf with a pixie-cut blonde hard-body. Photos of said frolicking soon surfaced on , which Hicks' camp flaunted as proof that their man was, in fact, a heterosexual. (He'd never been linked to a female before). The woman was subsequently identified as one Caroline Lyders, an anchor on a local Milwaukee television network.