As I posted earlier today, Simon caused quite a stir on last night's American Idol when he was caught rolling his eyes in response to Chris Richardson's heartfelt mention of the Virginia Tech tragedy. Many of us have been speculating about both Chris' sincerity, and Simon's seeming insensitivity. But whatever Simon's intention while rolling his eye (and I doubted all along that it was intentionally disrespectful), he knows it didn't look good.

And that's why today Simon is explaining his actions. In his defense, Simon claims he was talking to Paula about Chris and his nasally singing, so he didn't even hear Chris make the V-Tech comments. Simon apparently rolled his eyes in response to what he was saying to Paula, rather than what Chris said.

Unfortunately for Simon, that's not how it looked to those of us watching at home.

I went to sleep last night after posting my Idol recap, and woke up to find many commenters upset about Simon. Apparently, many feel Simon showed disrespect for the Virginia Tech tragedy by rolling his eyes in disgust after Idol finalist Chris Richardson gave a heartfelt shout-out to Virginia Tech.

So what happened exactly? And how did I miss this? Actually, I didn't. It just didn't register with me as anything significant at the time. In fact, I merely assumed that Simon was blowing off Chris Richardson's defensive remark about his "nasally" singing being an artistic choice. I also assumed that people were just looking for controversy this morning, and making a "mountain out of a molehill."

But then I went back and re-watched the exchange. You can do the same, since some industrious soul has already posted it on YouTube. Just act fast before the clip is pulled. The clip is embedded after the jump.