Mariah Carey hasn’t really talked about her time on American Idol since she left the show after last season, but the pop superstar finally opened up in a radio interview today. Carey, who feuded with Nicki Minaj throughout her one-season stint, didn’t have fond memories of the experience.
Carey spoke with Hot 97’s Angie Martinez and recalled how the producers talked her into taking the job and how she was disappointed when it didn’t turn out like she hoped.
“Honestly, I hated it,” she told Martinez, reports The New York Daily News. “Here's what it was. I was the first person who signed on… I thought it was going to be a three-person panel.”
Carey explained that the producers offered her plenty of money and she thought that working with her frequent collaborator Randy Jackson would make it worthwhile. “I've known him forever. He used to play bass for me. Like, this isn't a big deal. This will be nothing,” she said. But it was the opposite of that.
Carey was part of a four-person panel that included Jackson, Minaj and country singer Keith Urban. Minaj and Carey never got along and Minaj even called her “sir” once.
“It was like hell — going to work every day in hell with Satan,” Carey joked in the interview. Carey didn’t mention any names, but continued to express her disappointment in how the show turned out. She did praise the talent that was discovered and said that people she wished would have gone through didn’t.
After the season finished in May, both announced that they would not be back. In fact, Jackson has also left as a judge, although Urban is returning with Harry Connick Jr and Jennifer Lopez.
image: Fox