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Thanks to the heroic efforts of USA TODAY's Donna Freydkin, who not only went to Katharine's "Big Sexy" press conference in New York this morning but interviewed her briefly later, here's everything you want to know about Katharine (well, everything she talked about, anyway). Here's Donna's report from the trenches:
Katharine exudes the same girl-next-door freshness as Mandy Moore. She's got the soft voice, gently tousled hair and easy smile. And when she gets particularly animated about something -- say, her boyfriend Nick Cokas' hair -- she'll touch your leg for extra emphasis.
Katharine travels with an entourage worthy of a bigger star. At the Ritz-Carlton in New York to promote her deal with Sexy Hair Products, for which she'll be the new "face," she had a retinue of handlers with her, hovering around protectively. She talked to reporters after a three-week hiatus from the media -- and the current American Idol tour -- due to her bruised vocal chords.
But Katharine is back in a major way. She's co-hosting ABC's The View Thursday, but says she's not jittery about it. "Once you come off of Idol, at least for me, you're never as nervous as you were," she says.
And when she rejoins the Idol tour in Pittsburgh tomorrow, she'll be taking it easy. "I just have to sing easily so I can get through the tour," she says. Katharine is under orders from her doctor to get plenty of sleep and guzzle gallons of water.
When the tour is done on Sept. 24 in Wilkes-Barre, PA, Katharine will record her album. "I've been writing and have been meeting with writers and producers," she says. "We're envisioning a soulful pop kind of album."