HOLLYWOOD — Watch out, Simon Cowell. There's a challenger for your title as the toughest-talking judge in reality TV.
Assuming, of course, you can classify "America's Next Top Model" as anything approaching "reality."
Janice Dickinson is blunt and often obnoxious when talking to the aspiring supermodels on the UPN series (Tuesday, 8 p.m., Ch. 24), hosted and produced by genuine supermodel Tyra Banks. Which wouldn't be as tough to take were it not for the fact that Dickinson is the great love of her own life.
"I am the world's first supermodel," Dickinson said. "I coined the term in 1979."
Yes, she was a successful model. But, before this show, has much of anybody ever heard of her? Outside the supermodeling world, that is?
Supermodel? Super-ego.
It's quite obvious that Dickinson was added to the second go-round of "Next Top Model" because she's obnoxious. And because Banks and the show's other producers have watched "Idol."
"Obviously, we picked Janice because she pops on camera," said executive producer Ken Mok. "She's very forthright with her opinion. And her opinions are always very accurate, which is the great thing about her. And there's good interplay between her and Tyra."
Not that Dickinson's ego would allow her to admit that.
"Simon who?" she said. "This is reality. I'm not here to b-------. I'm here to state the truth," she said. "A lot of people say, 'Oh, she's the mean one. She's like that Simon character.' I have more experience than Simon. Simon never sang a note, but I fell off a lot of runways in my life."
Well, gee, Janice, but Cowell was a hugely successful talent scout and producer before "Idol." When have you ever nurtured a top model?
No answer.
How shallow is she? Dickinson's response to Banks' insistence that the show include a plus-size model? "Ugh." (And, let's be clear — the "plus-size model" weighs 135 pounds.)
Ah, but it's tough to be a model. Just ask her. "When I started in the industry in 1977, the norm was blonde-haired, thin-lipped, blue-eyed, Ms.-Apple-Pie, all-American, next-door, Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley," Dickinson said. "I went to New York in 1977 with about $14 in my pocket, really wanting to be a model, nothing else. I didn't want to finish school. Didn't want anything."
Gee, it's nice to have a dream, isn't it?
But after being turned down by every top New York modeling agency, Dickinson went to Europe.
"At that time there was a big model strike, and none of the American models were working," Dickinson said. (Really. Big model strike and everything.)
"I just said, '(Expletive) this. I'm going to work. And I'll take the job,' because I was so hungry," she said. "I was so broke, but I wanted to model."
Even fellow judge Eric Nicholson (a senior editor at Jane magazine) burst out laughing at this. "You crossed the first model picket line?" he asked.
"Somebody had to do it," Dickinson said. "I was the Rosa Parks of modeling. I'm serious."
Now, hold on a minute. She's obviously an egomaniac, but does she really want to compare crossing a modeling picket line — in essence, becoming a scab model — to the actions of an African-American woman who refused to sit in the back of the bus and became an icon of the civil-rights movement? Does she really want us to write that she thinks she's Rosa Parks?
"I think I'm the 'Lord of the Rings' of supermodels," she said. "You can write that."
Ugh.
She took credit for upping the rates models were paid from $600 a day to $1,200 a day, the beginning of an escalation that has reached ridiculous proportions. And for models receiving diva treatments.
"Thank you, Janice," she said, referring to herself in the third person.
Ugh.
Banks said she became aware of Dickinson by reading her book, "No Lifeguard on Duty," because "Janice did every single thing that I tell the girls not to do."
"Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, fashion and survival," Dickinson interjected.
Ugh.
Actually, Dickinson could be a fine addition to the reality TV genre. Too bad she's not a contestant on another reality show like, maybe, "Survivor." Then she could get voted off the island.
Or, maybe, off the planet.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com