Just when I'd started to wonder just how many "next top models" America really needs, the CW's launched a search for the next Pussycat Doll.

Lil' Kim -- who was sprung from the Philadelphia Detention Center last July -- will be one of the judges on "Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll," along with Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin (whose hairstylist brother, Jonathan, was at the egotistical center of the Bravo "reality" show "Blow Out").

Doll fans worried that the top-selling group might have lost someone, fear not.

"No one left the group," said Antin, who founded the group 12 years ago in a garage and whose Las Vegas franchise includes Pussycat Dolls who dance, but don't sing (one former Vegas Doll is now "Jersey" on Jennifer Lopez's "DanceLife" on MTV).

"I just always think there can never be enough Pussycat Dolls in the world," Antin said.

Lil' Kim, meanwhile, calls the legal problems that led to her incarceration for conspiracy and perjury in connection with a 2001 shooting -- description courtesy of Wikipedia -- "a blessing in disguise."

"There is nothing that I'm embarrassed about or regret," she said. "That was then and now is now and my future just looks so bright."

Afterward, as her publicist did her best to pull reporters away from the rapper, I asked her why she'd chosen the CW as one of the first steps in her comeback.

"It was a no-brainer," she said.