Heather Havrilesky writes a very insightful reaction to "Ashleegate" on Salon:

The normally rabid live audience reacted with stilted laughter as Ashlee crammed as many "Oops!" and "What can you do?" gestures as possible into her final few seconds on the air. That hapless little-sister, "Sure, I'm pathetic, but in a cute way!" shtick that made her MTV reality show, "The Ashlee Simpson Show," so popular, won her the devotion of scores of fans, and contributed to selling almost two million copies of her debut album, "Autobiography," now wore thin.

Ashlee gave a phone interview on TRL just a few minutes ago. She blamed the mishap on "acid reflux disease" and her drummer, who she says "pressed the wrong button." Whatever, Ashlee. Take a Nexium and stop blaming everything on your band.

I managed to transcribe a bit of her TRL interview, which I've posted below. She performs tonight at the Radio Music Awards, which airs tonight on NBC at 9 p.m. I won't be watching.

"I had severe acid reflux that day. It started acting up. Rehearsals were amazing, but I completely lost my voice, and my dad was like, 'I'm sorry, but you have to sing along with the backing track.' …

I never sing to a backing track. My voice is much better now."