TV presenter Terri Seymour was covering the American Idol in Los Angeles when a woman attempted to choke her.

Friends helped fight the attacker, Janice Thibodeaux, off and police later arrested her, but Seymour was so shaken up by the incident she called her ex-boyfriend.

Cowell says, “(It was) a frenzied attack, (she was) nearly strangled… She called me… It was some crazy girl (who is) locked up. It was bad. I felt sorry for her (Seymour).”

The Brit, who is a judge on Idol, admits he thought Seymour was joking when she first called and then his mind went elsewhere: “Naturally, I assumed it was somebody who was jealous.”

Thibodeaux, who remains in police custody after her attack on Seymour, has told RadarOnline.com the attack was motivated by footage of Cowell pretending to throttle fellow Idol judge Paula Abdul on the show.

Thibodeaux claims she approached Seymour to confront her about Cowell’s behaviour on a recent episode, during which he placed his hands around Abdul’s neck.

She says, “I wasn’t cool with Simon Cowell choking Paula Abdul on the show… and with her crying-out ‘help’ as he did so. Nobody said anything about that so I wanted to confront him about it because that is not appropriate behaviour, is it?

“I knew she (Seymour) was his girlfriend so I went up to her to tell her how I felt. We started arguing and then I put my hands around her neck and started choking her just like Simon had done with Paula.”

Thibodeaux is facing a felony charge of battery.

‘Idol’ attack suspect cites revenge

The Los Angeles District Attorney and investigators have been working overtime to try to build a case against the singer, but as of press time, still no charges have been brought forth against Brown. And now, it looks like their biggest hope is now backing down.

A file on the case, including Rihanna’s original statement to police as well as witness accounts, is expected to be handed to the Los Angeles County District Attorney later this week.

And even without Rihanna’s help, California law allows prosecutors to charge an individual with domestic violence. But the question is: do they have enough evidence?

Stay tuned…

As far as the couple’s reunion in Miami on Saturday (February 28), it’s rumored that Rihanna and Brown did more than just work out their differences.

According to a report by Star magazine, Brown may have proposed. The glossy tabloid style mag says that Chris apologized, begged for forgiveness, and proposed to her on the spot.

“All she’s ever wanted was to be with him forever,” a source tells Star. “Rihanna is looking for the husband-and-two-kids deal before she turns 25. She believes in fairy tales, and she wants to live hers with Chris. She was totally up front and confessed to him, ‘I can’t live without you.’”

The mag even says they got married at Diddy’s $14.5 million Miami mansion on Star Island, calling a minister in to seal the deal. This, however, has yet to be confirmed.

Rihanna Refuses To Press Charges Against Chris Brown, Couple Gets Married?

“That might not have been the first image I would want out there of him,” said public-relations guru and crisis-management expert Howard Bragman, author of “Where’s My Fifteen Minutes?”; Bragman has handled delicate situations for everyone from embattled former “Grey’s Anatomy” star Isaiah Washington to onetime “Tonight Show” sidekick Ed McMahon. “But I also don’t believe that he should be running around in sack cloth and ashes. He’s a young man, and he has to go on with his life.”

The problem, Bragman said, is that — apart from some grainy photos that reportedly show him and Rihanna arriving at an airport in Los Angeles, which were posted by TMZ.comon Monday (March 2) — the jet-skiing images are the only ones out there right now of Brown, whose career has already suffered some damage as a result of reports that he allegedly struck and bit Rihanna during a domestic dispute in Los Angeles on February 8. Because the jet-skiing pictures are the only ones currently making the rounds, Bragman said, they become the “defining image” of the alleged reunion and “that’s not how you want to be defined at this time.”

Bragman said he would have preferred to see the 19-year-old singer “taking his mother to a Tyler Perry movie or out to dinner … anything with family. You want to be really cautious at these moments. And if his people set this up [as has been reported], I don’t know why, because it seems to project an attitude of, ‘This is behind me, and I’m going to have fun, because I’m Chris Brown.’ ”

While no photos of the couple together have surfaced since the alleged incident, hundreds of readers wrote into MTV News to express their shock, disappointment, hope and confusion over the alleged weekend reunion at a home owned by Diddy in Miami, with some singling out the jet-ski pictures as particularly galling.

Us Weekly reported that Brown was photographed arriving via private jet in Los Angeles on Monday (March 2), with Rihanna not visibly by his side; spokespeople for the singers had not return calls for comment at press time.

As to how the reported reconciliation happened, People Senior Editor Julie Dam told the “Early Show” on Monday morning that Brown reached out to Rihanna on her birthday last week “and since then, they’ve sort of been mutually talking.” While Dam didn’t know if Brown sent gifts to his girlfriend of more than a year as part of that attempt to reconcile, she said Brown has definitely been “saying that he’s really sad and reflective about what happened, but he’s really happy to be with the woman he loves.”

Asked if the singers’ relative youth — Rihanna just turned 21 — has to do with their alleged quick reconciliation, clinical psychologist Dr. Jeff Gardere told the program, “I don’t think it’s just about the youth here, because we see that older folks in their 30s, 40s and so on who are involved in domestic violence, they break up and they come back together.” But, he warned, if they stay together and there was, in fact, an abusive incident, there is a “very high probability it will happen again, because we find out that some of the female victims of domestic violence quite often end up choosing other people who are abusers, because they don’t work out the emotional issues that may draw them to those people who perpetrate violence against them.”

As to how the pictures of Brown might further impact his career, Bragman said until the facts in the case emerge, no one except Rihanna and Brown know why they are doing what they’re doing.

“The image is not the final nail in the coffin by any stretch — that would have been if he was with another woman — but at a time like this, you always want to go back to family,” he said. “The real question is, ‘What does the DA in Los Angeles think of this image?’ ” Bragman said. “How does this affect how they feel about it, and does it make him [seem] more capricious, or does Brown know something about the resolution of the case that we don’t, and does he have a reason to feel good?”

The district attorney has not yet filed charges in the case but is reportedly planning to do so next week.

Will Chris Brown Jet-Ski Pictures Hurt His Image?

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The pair have reunited almost three weeks after Brown, 19, allegedly battered the “Umbrella” singer on Feb. 8, a source tells PEOPLE.

“They’re together again. They care for each other,” says the source. The on-again couple are currently spending time together at one of Sean “Diddy” Combs’s homes, on Miami Beach’s Star Island.

Adds the source: “While Chris is reflective and saddened about what happened, he is really happy to be with the woman he loves.”

In its latest issue, PEOPLE reports that Brown called Rihanna on her 21st birthday one week ago. “He called to wish her happy birthday,” a source told the magazine. “They’ve reached out to each other. It’s been mutual.”

Brown was booked by LAPD for making criminal threats but the case has not yet been presented to the District Attorney, who will ultimately determine which charges, if any, will be prosecuted.

Rihanna and Chris Brown Are Back Together

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