Imus returning to airwaves after firing

New York – Will Don Imus be defiant or contrite? Will he mock his skeptics while making his triumphant return to radio Monday?

Or will he muzzle his mouth?

Imus isn’t talking, yet, but it’s safe to say radio’s best-known curmudgeon will have lots to say when his show kicks off at 5 a.m. CST Monday on WABC-AM and other Citadel Broadcasting Corp. stations around the country, ending his nearly eight-month banishment from the air.

The morning show will be simulcast on cable’s RFD-TV, owned by the Rural Media Group Inc., and rebroadcast on radio in the evenings.

Monday’s four-hour premiere will be broadcast from Town Hall in Times Square, where $100 tickets were sold to benefit the Imus Ranch for Kids With Cancer. After its debut, the Imus spectacle will be on 5-8 a.m. weekdays, from a studio across the street from Madison Square Garden.

Not much is known about the show’s format, other than at least one black person will participate regularly, along with longtime newsreader Charles McCord. Imus, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

Whether this will temper his staunchest critics is unclear. Sharpton’s spokeswoman said the civil rights leader wasn’t commenting. In Boston on Friday, a group of black community leaders protested a local station’s plan to air the Imus program.

MSNBC and then CBS Radio jettisoned Imus in April after he called the Rutgers University women’s basketball players “nappy-headed hos.”

Former ‘Idol’ finalist Jessica Sierra jailed

Tampa, Fla. – Former “American Idol” finalist Jessica Sierra was jailed early Saturday after a drunken confrontation with police and onlookers, authorities said.

The arrest comes less than two weeks after she pleaded no contest to charges of battery and possession of cocaine.

Sierra, 22, was charged Saturday with disorderly intoxication, resisting arrest and violating conditions of her parole on earlier felony battery and possession charges. She was being held without bond.

Sierra, who was supposed to be completing a drug rehabilitation program to be televised nationally, was arrested at a bar in Ybor City at 2:10 a.m. Saturday.

“As the defendant was taken into custody, she attempted to push away and flee the scene,” the arresting officers wrote.

Her attorney, John Fitzgibbons, said he heard about his client’s latest run-in with the law Saturday and had not spoken with her.

Reporters: Williams apologizes for outburst

Savannah, Ga. – Talk show host Montel Williams has apologized for an angry confrontation with reporters who said he threatened them.

Williams – in Savannah to promote a program giving free prescriptions to low-income people – became upset with a reporter’s question Friday and terminated an interview.

When the Savannah Morning-News reporters later returned to the hotel for an unrelated assignment, he approached one of them – high school student Courtney Scott, an intern at the newspaper.

“As we were preparing to film, Montel walked up with his bodyguard and got in Courtney Scott’s face pointing his finger telling her ‘Don’t look at me like that. Do you know who I am? I’m a big star, and I can look you up, find where you live and blow you up,'” said Joseph Cosey, a web content producer for the newspaper. “At this time he was randomly pointing at all of us.”

Williams, a patient advocate since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, later issued a statement apologizing for the outburst.

“I mistakenly thought the reporter and photographer in question were at the hotel to confront me about some earlier comments,” Williams said. “I was wrong, and I apologize for my overreaction.”

Video shows Roberts chasing paparazzi

Los Angeles – Silver-screen sprite Julia Roberts is fed up with intrusive paparazzi, and she’s letting them know it.

The slightly built star who played Tinkerbell in “Hook” was videotaped Wednesday in Malibu wildly tailing two videographers, flagging them down and lecturing them for taping her near a school.

The footage, taken by freelance videographers for the celebrity news and photo agency Splash and broadcast by “Inside Edition,” shows Roberts driving in a Mercedes sport utility vehicle behind the men, honking and waving them to stop.

“I’m going to talk to you about the fact that you’re at a school where children go. Turn it off,” Roberts, 40, said in the footage, standing outside their car and pointing at the videographers after they pulled over.

While driving, the Oscar-winning star of “Erin Brockovich” crossed over a double yellow line, and did not have children in her car, Splash media sales representative Amy Wiwuga told The Associated Press on Friday.