Crow discusses cancer battle, split from Armstrong

New York – Sheryl Crow says it was difficult to be apart from ex-fiance Lance Armstrong after she was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year.

“It was difficult, you know,” Crow tells Vanity Fair magazine in its August issue. “I know he wanted to be there.”

Crow and Armstrong announced their breakup in February. The 44-year-old rocker says the split was “devastating” for both of them.

“I do think about Lance every day,” she says. “And I think about his kids every day.”

When Crow learned she had cancer, she contacted the seven-time Tour de France champion, who was on a solo road trip from Lake Tahoe, Calif., to Oregon.

“When I got that news, I can’t even describe it,” says Armstrong, who is a survivor of testicular cancer. “It was the cruelest twist. : I actually turned around to make the drive to L.A. We talked along the way and she said, ‘You know, I just don’t think that’s a great idea.'”

‘American Idol’ winner happy to be on the bus

Los Angeles – Some pop stars want fame and money. “American Idol” winner Taylor Hicks just wants to ride the tour bus.

Hicks gets to do just that on a cross-country tour that kicked off Wednesday in Manchester, N.H. The tour, which reunites Hicks with castmates from the fifth edition of the hit Fox show, ends Sept. 24 in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

“I’ve always wanted to be on a bus. : My home has been on the road since even before ‘American Idol,'” the 29-year-old Alabama native said in a recent interview.

As a struggling musician en route to his next gig, Hicks had hoped to travel on his own tour bus one day.

“You would see buses on the road in Alabama going to their next destination, and I would always dream about being on one and now I have the opportunity,” he said.

Ashley Judd says treatment helped ease depression

New York – Ashley Judd says she spent 47 days in a Texas treatment facility for depression and other emotional problems, in an interview in Glamour magazine.

“I needed help,” the 38-year-old actress tells the magazine in its August issue. “I was in so much pain.”

Judd, the daughter of country music star Naomi Judd, says she entered the Shades of Hope Treatment Center in Buffalo Gap in February for “codependence in my relationships; depression, blaming, raging, numbing, denying and minimizing my feelings.”

Judd says her relationships, including her marriage to race-car driver Dario Franchitti, have improved.

“It’s so simple really: I was unhappy and now I’m happy,” she says. “Now, even when I’m having a rough day, it’s better than my best day before treatment.”