NEW YORK (AP) - If Ashlee Simpson's stomach was upset Saturday night, imagine how she's feeling now.

Busted for a Saturday Night Live lip-synch gone awry, her manager-father said Monday his 19-year-old daughter used the extra help because acid reflux disease had made her voice hoarse.

"Just like any artiste in America, she has a backing track that she pushes so you don't have to hear her croak through a song on national television," Joe Simpson told Ryan Seacrest on Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM. "No one wants to hear that."

He insisted it would be Ashlee's live voice alone during her appearance on NBC's Radio Music Awards Monday night.

And he said she's never used the extra help onstage before.
Simpson had performed her hit single Pieces of Me without incident earlier on SNL. When she came back a second time, her band started playing and the first lines of her singing Pieces of Me could be heard again.

She was holding her microphone at her waist at the time. Simpson looked momentarily confused as the band plowed ahead with the song and the vocal was quickly silenced.
A flustered Simpson made some exaggerated hopping dance moves, then walked off the stage.

The incident exposed what many consider an obvious secret: that some singers who appear onstage aren't singing live at all, or at least have their voices augmented by backing tracks.

"Every artiste that I know in this business has had vocal problems at some time - from Celine on down," said Joe Simpson, also father of Jessica Simpson. "So you've got to do what you've got to do."

He said it was his decision to use the tapes when it became apparent that acid reflux disease had swollen Ashlee's vocal cords. After consulting Wayne Newton's doctor, she received a cortisone shot to get her ready for the Radio Music Awards, he said.

It was the band's drummer who pushed the wrong button onstage, he said.

To add to Ashlee's indignity Monday, eBay.com was auctioning off her private cell phone number, which it said had been inadvertently, and briefly, posted on her Website.

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