Mariah Carey on "American Idol" Gig: "Honestly, I Hated It"
by James Hibberd
Nov 13, 2013


Mariah Carey is clarifying her feelings about working on Fox’s "American Idol".

“Honestly, I hated it,” she said during a Hot 97 radio interview when asked about her time judging season 12 of the talent competition earlier this year along with Randy Jackson, Keith Urban and — most infamously and contentiously — Nicki Minaj.





So how much did she hate it?

“I was led to believe — I was the first person signed on,” Carey said.

“Heaven forbid I look like I’m saying something negative, but honestly I thought it was going to be a three-person panel. They gave me a nice dangling monetary moment. I was like, okay, Randy Jackson will be there, I’ve known him forever. This isn’t a big deal. This will be nothing. But it wasn’t that. It was like hell. It was like going to work every day in hell with Satan.”





As Carey laughed and covered her eyes at her last comment, the host asked, “Really?” And then Carey added: “Nah, I’m just playing. It didn’t affect me that much.”

“I loved the contestants. And some of them were so good, and also really good people. It was disappointing when they would — for political reasons — not put contestants through. And I’m like, I’m not going to sit here and do this. I would prefer to put this person in a studio and record a record with them.”

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/11/13/mariah-carey-american-idol-hated/

Mariah Carey Says "American Idol" Was "Not What I Signed Up For" (Video)
2/12/14
by Michele Amabile Angermiller


For those who commented that "the real Mariah was SO not there" on "American Idol" during season 12, Mariah Carey agrees.

She dished in an interview with Elvis Duran and the Z100 Morning Zoo on Wednesday morning, while out promoting her new record set for May 6th, that she was anything but herself while on the judges' panel with Randy Jackson, Keith Urban and Nicki Minaj.

"I should’ve been a mentor on the show and that’s it -- I should’ve been like the Jimmy Iovine, and we love Jimmy," she said. "Jimmy did a great job! He’s a little brutal sometimes and I didn’t always agree with his assessments, but yeah! I mean, Jimmy knows what he’s doing; he’s discovered a lot of great talent."





The Grammy-winning singer said that she was blindsided by the addition of a fourth judge -- without outwardly naming Minaj, she said, "what happened was that I was led to believe that I was going to be in a three-panel show, like the traditional way and yet, somehow… well, I won’t get into the legalities."


However, she did say she was uncomfortable with last season’s drama. "Everybody’s just trying to do their job, but I felt that going in the direction of making it into a reality show, was not something I signed up for."





And as for the ratings?

"I felt like, well, this reflected on me, because I was the first person that they signed, dangling a huge star. We love everybody, yay Idol, yay team that tried to make it happen, but we wish you would’ve tried it on a different season."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/idol-worship/video-mariah-carey-says-american-679990

Mariah Carey Slams "American Idol" as Fake, Calls It the "Worst Experience" of her Life
by Stephanie Marcus, The Huffington Post
5/29/15


Mariah Carey isn't the kind of person who worries about burning bridges, clearly.

On Thursday, the singer told us all how she really feels about "American Idol" during an interview on the "Kyle and Jackie O” radio show in Australia -- and she didn't hold back. Carey was a judge for a single season back in 2013 along with Randy Jackson, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban, and she made it clear she has no intention of returning to the show for its final season.





"Hell no! Absolutely not! That was the worst experience of my life," she told the radio show hosts, before alluding to an apparently show-manufactured feud between herself and Minaj.

"I’m not going to get into what it was. Let’s just say, I don’t think they had any interest in us having a good experience through that show. Pitting two females against each other wasn’t cool," Carey explained. "It should have been about the contestants instead of about some non-existent feud that turned into even more ridiculousness."





Carey also took issue with the show dubbing it "so boring and so fake."

"You have to make up things to say about people," she said. "Half the time the performances are good. You'd just be like, 'It was good!'"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/29/mariah-carey-american-idol-fake_n_7465874.html?