After critics begin clapping and demanding, "Paula!" "Paula!" Fox entertainment president Peter Liguori comes onstage, says he feels like he's at a "Black Sabbath concert," and introduces a clip.

And she's HERE. Carrying a water bottle.

Asked why the session began 40 minutes later, Simon Cowell steps up to say his plane was late getting in from London.

He then addresses the meanness question: "I take your point. It's a singing competition" and he called someone "a bush baby" (a much-criticized recent reference to a contestant's bulging eyes).

Abdul's pretty quickly asked about the YouTube videos (apparently since removed) of promotional interviews she'd done with Fox affiliates in which she appeared to be under the influence of something beyond good spirits:

"I wasn't even aware that we were actually still commencing," she said before explaining how affiliate interviews are done. "I did three hours of them, there were a couple of glitches throughout," and the final one, "had tremendous technical difficulties," with two stations talking at the same time.

"I'm in a swivel chair and I'm swiveling and I'm very animated with my hands...It's very hard to explain," she said.

"When I was watching them myself, I was going, 'Oh, God.'"

Clearly, the decision has been made to circle the wagons: Simon stepped up again to take responsibility for some other gaffe Paula made last season, claiming to have made up a proverb involving "moths and melons" right before airtime. (Honestly, I don't recall this one.)

She kissed him at this point, then talked about how hard it was for her for the past year having people thinking she was drunk or on drugs.

Then it was Randy Jackson's turn: "In the Coke cups, it's all Coca-Cola!" (Product placement alert!)

More support from Simon: "I hate to admit this publicly, but I wouldn't do this show unless Paula, Randy and Ryan were on the same show...I don't want to work with boring people."

So if Paula's finding the scrutiny as difficult as she claims to, why is she doing a "reality" show for Bravo about her life?

In "my life, I wear many different hats, I always have," she said.

No, she's not wearing a hat right now. But then I wouldn't presume to judge her entire life by this press conference.