Poor Paula. On Tuesday night's "American Idol," she reviewed a performance that had yet to happen, causing fans and bloggers to question the integrity of the judges' comments.        

Yesterday morning, she went on "Idol" host Ryan Seacrest's radio show to do damage control. She said her review of Jason Castro's second song – which had yet to be performed – was an "honest mistake."       

Paula Abdul was thrown off by Tuesday's altered format, which had contestants singing two songs instead of one. Unlike the usual routine where each "Idol" performance is judged immediately, Abdul, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell were made to take notes, then offer individual critiques in rapid succession at the end of each round.       

Jackson gave his quick two cents about each of the contestants and threw it to Abdul, who said: "Oh gosh, we've never had to write these things down ... fast enough." After looking confused and sifting through her note cards, she said to Castr "Jason, first song, I loved hearing your lower register, which we never really hear, um ...The second song, I felt like your usual charm wasn't — it was missing for me. It kind of left me a little empty."       

"The two songs," she continued, "made me feel like you're not fighting hard enough to get into the top four."      

Soft laughter rippled through the crowd and Simon did his usual roll of the eyes as Randy tried to bail her out.      

"That was just on the first song," he told Paula, pointing up to Castro. "Just on the first one."      

"Oh my god, I thought you — I thought you sang twice!" Paula said.      

In an interview with "Entertainment Tonight," Paula blamed her mistake on being told at the last minute "in the dark" of the change in format. On Seacrest's show Wednesday, she said she’d written notes on both Castro and performer David Cook on the same card, and in the end, was simply “confused” as she gave her feedback.