Friday, 08/10/07 - By BEVERLY KEEL
Talk about playing with fire.
Kellie Pickler and Taylor Swift have been playing practical jokes on tourmate Brad Paisley, who is known in the industry as a master prankster.
"In Kellie's hometown of Charlotte, she came out onstage dressed in overalls and pigtails and brought all these live chickens out onstage while Brad was doing an acoustic set," Taylor, 17, says. "I was in the front row in a brown wig and Billy Bob teeth screaming, "I love you, Kellie Pickler!' She said, "Welcome to North Carolina, Brad.'"
They also dressed up like ticks and were chased around by "exterminator" Jack Ingram when Brad sang "Ticks."
After watching these amateurs with amusement, Brad decided to fight back. "I keep telling them, 'You have no idea what you've done,'" he says. "It's like sticking your hand through the lion's cage."
His first target was Kellie. Before Kellie walked out onstage in New Jersey, Brad showed a hysterical video called "You Be the Judge," which asked the audience to reach its own conclusion (through doctored photos) about her much-discussed figure change. (You can see it on YouTube.) "You can imagine that got a good reaction," Brad says. "Knowing her and her sense of humor, I knew she would be fine with it but slightly horrified. Her reaction was wonderful."
Wearing a trench coat, with tiny shorts and a little top underneath, she came out during Brad's set and flashed him with her back to the audience. "I looked him straight in the eye and said, 'You be the judge.' Everyone went nuts," she says. "He didn't even look down; his face turned pale white like a Crayola crayon. He looked at the audience and gave a thumbs-up."
Brad says, "If she had any nerve, she wouldn't have had on the bathing suit."
Before he showed the video, he told Taylor, "You'll want to watch Kellie's intro." He says, "When she watched it, I think she ran away screaming, 'Oh no! This isn't dressing up like a tick anymore.'
"I've got a debt to pay yet to several people, Taylor especially," Brad says. "All gloves come off when she turns 18. Hopefully she is with us past that date.
"It's definitely a way to keep from being crazy and losing your mind in the middle of a long tour."
"Exterminator" Jack Ingram and a couple of "ticks," Kellie Pickler, left, and Taylor Swift.
Paisley pranks Pickler, still plotting for Swift - Nashville, Tennessee - Friday, 08/10/07 - Tennessean.com
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