Is “Project Runway’s�? Keith Michael a true villain or was his much-hyped dismissal from the show just a ratings ploy? Michael himself thinks it’s all a little fishy. The designer has approached several blogs to defend himself and his dubious actions.

Keith was kicked off the show for bringing along pattern making books, which was pointed out to the producers by one of his competitors, Kayne, and for leaving the production and using the Internet. In defense of his first misstep, Keith told Bravo’s senior vice president of production and programming, Andy Cohen, "One of the books was the most detailed pattern book you would ever see about menswear that had nothing to do with anything on the show. I brought it because I was working on my menswear line at the time. And the other was a dictionary of production terms. These pattern books were not the kind that you would be able to use for practical purposes on the show.�?

He explained his 4-hour departure as follows: "All I did was I went to my boyfriend's apartment, found his spare key, found an e-mail from the executive producer and asked him to contact me. I don't know what to say – that's the deal."

Michael claims that Bravo has wrongly made him out to be a cheater. He said, "I am not the kind of person who can't admit when he's wrong. I feel like there was a lack of integrity on behalf of the production. I thought it was one-sided…I think this whole thing is farfetched and crazy. I have gotten so much fan e-mail from this whole thing. People want me to be the bad boy, but I am not that guy…I don't know who's to blame but I am not owning up to this."