Mariah Carey derides “American Idol” judging stint as a “bleak” experience

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Jackhole Productions/ABC StudiosWhile appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Wednesday night to promote her new Las Vegas show, Mariah Carey also talked about her notoriously unpleasant experience judging American Idol season 12 with Keith Urban, Nicki Minaj and Randy Jackson.  The topic came up when Jimmy started talking about Mariah’s friendship with her former tour mate, Lionel Richie.

“Is it true that you told him not to do American Idol when he was thinking about whether or not he should judge it?” Jimmy inquired. “If I didn’t, I should have!” Mariah shot back, as the audience laughed.  She then claimed not to know that Lionel is currently a judge on the ABC show, saying, “Is he doing it?  Is it going well for him?”

Mariah then clarified that she wasn’t dissing Lionel, but the show itself.

“I wasn’t saying that Lionel…wouldn’t be a great judge, I was just saying I didn’t have the world’s best experience on that,” noted the diva.  To which Kimmel cracked, “Oh, I think everybody got that!” as the audience laughed. 

While Mariah wouldn’t answer Jimmy’s question about what the worst part of judging the show was, she did say, “It was bleak, darling, it was a bleak experience, we don’t have to go back there.” 

Then, apparently throwing shade at Nicki Minaj, the only other female judge on the panel, Mariah said, “But there were some good hairstyles…yeah.  We’ll stick the positives. My hairstyles were good!”  As the audience laughed, Mariah said, “Psych!” 

Then she added, as unenthusiastically as possible, “I mean, everybody else’s were great, too. Yay.”

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