Paula Abdul on Idol Mix-Up: "I Got Lost in My Notes"

In an interview on Ryan Seacrest's KIIS-FM radio show Wednesday, she blamed the gaffe on a change in judging.

For the first time in seven years, she said judges were asked to wait to critique contestants until all five had performed (normally, each contestant gets feedback as soon as they've finished their song).

Abdul said she first heard about the change when the show went live.

"I go, 'We have never had to do this before ... Oh my God, what do we do?'" she told Seacrest.

"We were freaking out," Abdul added. "I said, 'We're gonna need paper and a pen to make sure we remember what we saw.'"

So she jotted down some notes.

When it came time to give Castro her feedback, she said, "I started looking at what I'm writing... I was reading the critique of what I was writing for Jason Castro...."

On the same page: Her notes for contestant David Cook, which she thought were for a second song Castro had performed.

"I got lost in my notes, and that is as simple as it was," she said. "It's so confusing.

"We were all discombobulated," she added. "It was just crazy, that's all."

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