Gail Simmons: Not As Spontaneously Prickly As Previously Believed

Top Chef

By B-Side | Thursday, December 7, 2006 | 2:33 pm | 4 Comments

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Last night during Top Chef, I noticed something peculiar about judge Gail Simmons’ appearance (not to mention Padma’s beachside bikini garb, but I’m sure Flipit will have more on that…). She seemed to be sporting something during the first half of judging that mysteriously disappeared (or did it?) for the second half. Can you spot what I’m talking about? This one’s for you, Photohunt fans of the world!

Answer after the jump!Give up? Turns out Gail was sporting none other than an earpiece at the judges’ table! While she addressed the challenge winners, the earpiece could be easily seen in her right ear:

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However, after the judges sent the winners out, and the next batch of fools entered, the earpiece had mysteriously disappeared!

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Or had it? When Gail turned her head to address the Padma region of the table, the earpiece resurfaced — this time in her left ear.

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Chances are the judges probably all have earpieces in their left ear (where the camera has no clear shot), which sadly suggests that this panel of persnickety gourmands may not be as sharp as we had previously hoped. We can only assume the producers have been feeding them lines and questions, which I guess shouldn’t be such a shock considering how scripted most reality shows are anyway. I hope this isn’t the case though. I’d be much happier believing Gail has migrating deafness, causing her to wear a hearing aid in one or both ears at any given time. Yeah, that’s probably it.

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4 Comments

  1. 1
    rhm
    Posted December 7, 2006 at 4:12 pm

    So, maybe it wasn’t Gail that hates the brown rubbery eggs? Because she sure told us how much she detests them about five times. I think the writers need to come up with more creative ways for her to bash the chefs’ eggs.

  2. 2
    elljay8
    Posted December 7, 2006 at 4:36 pm

    She was wearing the same thing during the fat camp episode – I seriously spent an hour googling her trying to figure out if she was deaf!

  3. 3
    IHeartTV
    Posted December 8, 2006 at 4:36 am

    I did notice the ear bud (?) in a previous episode. I looked hard, but it didn’t look like the other judges had one. Since it’s migrating, I guess she’s not deaf… but the show isn’t live. Why wouldn’t they just stop rolling if a producer wanted to tell her what to say?

  4. 4
    Donna Martin Graduates!
    Posted December 9, 2006 at 10:32 am

    ^ because you would destroy the flow of filming. Much more efficient to prompt your talent with snarky comments buzzing in their ear.

    Although how all those newsreaders etc function — that is, talk, read news, listen & converse etc — AND have that producer/director chatter in their ear at the same time is a mystery to me. Maybe it’s just something you get accustomed to. Multi-tasking.

    You can tell they prompt sad old Alex Trebek all the time with his “spontaneous witticisms”. Damn, that guy would be so dumb if he didn’t have all the Qs and As in front of him. I can tell (he’s not especially well educated) bc he sometimes gets facts wrong when he tries to wing it. Pompous ass!

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