Ellen DeGeneres admitted to Howard Stern that she hated being a judge on Season 10 of “American Idol.”
“That’s one of the worst decisions I’ve made,” the daytime talk show host said of her tenure on SiriusXM’s “The Howard Stern Show,” on Tuesday, admitting that she thought it would be fun, but couldn’t bring herself to serve harsh critiques.
“As a fan of the shows, it doesn’t matter that I sing or I know anything about pitch … I’m like everybody else at home, so I thought I’m gonna represent those people at home that have opinions,” she said. “But then I just thought, like Howard says, I can’t break this person’s heart. Let somebody else do that.”
Ellen isn’t the only ex-judge who regrets going on the Fox singing show. When Mariah Carey was recently asked if she would ever return, she replied: “Hell no! Absolutely not. That was the worst experience of my life.”
DeGeneres also expressed confusion over Caitlyn Jenner’s conflicted feelings about same-sex marriage, wondering how she can reconcile her conservative views with her experience as a transgender person.
Jenner served as a guest on the season premiere of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which aired Tuesday.
“I said, ‘You’re wanting people to understand and accept you — this is like, really confusing to people. And you still have a judgement about gay people and marriage,’” DeGeneres told Stern after the interview. “She goes, ‘Well if the word marriage is that important.’ It is. That’s the word.”
Despite being a conservative and an admitted Republican, Jenner also said during the appearance that she no longer opposes same-sex marriage, though she stopped short of voicing outright support.
“I have to admit that I remember 15 years ago, 20 years ago, whenever it was that the whole gay marriage issue came up, at first, I was not for it. I mean, I thought, ‘I’m a traditionalist,’” Jenner said on the daytime talk show.
“But as time goes on, like a lot of people on this issue, I’ve really changed thinking here to: ‘I don’t ever want to stand in front of anybody’s happiness’ … If that word ‘marriage’ is really, really that important to you, I can go with it.”