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Sideshow: Practice your 'American Idol' audition with Fox 29

Macklemore, who performed with Ryan Lewis, right, at the 2013 Budweiser Made in America festival on the Parkway, struggled with the stresses of success last year, but his fiancee helped get him back on track.
Macklemore, who performed with Ryan Lewis, right, at the 2013 Budweiser Made in America festival on the Parkway, struggled with the stresses of success last year, but his fiancee helped get him back on track.Read more(Photo: David Maialetti / Staff Photographer)

Practice 'American Idol' audition

Plan to compete for a spot on American Idol when the show holds auditions Sunday at the Liacouras Center in Phila.? Good Day Philadelphia on Fox 29 (WTXF-TV) may be able to help: You can test your audition song for a panel of local judges on Thursday at the Fox 29 Studio at Fourth and Market Streets beginning at 9 a.m.

Three finalists will perform live on Friday's edition of Good Day Philadelphia, while the winner will get to meet Idol judges Jennifer LopezHarry Connick Jr., and Keith Urban. Info: http://bit.ly/1KtUrmN, or look for the "Philly Idol" logo on www.myfoxphilly.com.

Macklemore: I had a relapse

Seattle rapper Macklemore says 2014 was a year of very high highs and low lows: He won four Grammys for his LP The Heist but also fell back into drug use.

A recovering addict, Macklemore, 32, tells Complex mag he couldn't handle the stresses of success: "The pressure and the fame - everything. All the clichés, man - like not being able to walk around, having no privacy," he said, "and the criticism, and the lack of connection . . . all of that put into one pie was just . . . I just wanted to escape." His fiancee, Tricia Davis, helped get him back on track.

Gossip petits fours

Matt Damon, returning as Jason Bourne in the franchise's next installment, will be joined by Tommy Lee Jones as a senior CIA officer, Variety says. Directed by Paul Greengrass, the film will costar Alicia Vikander and Julia Stiles. . . . TV Land has renewed its comedy The Soul Man, starring Cedric the Entertainer, Niecy Nash, and Wesley Jonathan, for a fifth season. . . . Former Hulk star Lou Ferrigno was fired by Donald Trump on Celebrity Apprentice, but he tells TMZ he wants to help the Combover win the race for the White House.

Handler: E! is mere kids' play

Chelsea Handler is having a passionate romance with Netflix. The TV personality, who walked away from her E! show Chelsea Lately in something of a huff, says she's lucky to be signed to develop programming by the streaming vid service.

"Netflix, they're very well known for letting talent drive its own car," she said Tuesday at a press confab in Beverly Hills. Handler, 40, said she's so happy now, she no longer feels the need to bad-mouth E!: "I don't miss it. I loved it, it was fun, and I was done." Then she delivered this sweet body blow: She said she made the decision to switch from E! to Netflix "because I had to get my brain working again. . . . It's the difference of playing with kids on the playground or being in a really well-respected college."

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