Clay Aiken Thinks 'American Idol' Judges Are Too Soft Now: 'I Appreciate the Criticism'
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00:00Do you feel like the judges are too soft now?
00:04Yes. I mean, and I don't say that because it was, I mean, Simon was also too rough, right?
00:08Right.
00:09He was fun. He was mean for the sake of being mean sometimes. I mean, he didn't,
00:13he didn't think he was mean and he doesn't, didn't want to be mean, but he was,
00:17he was playing it for the camera.
00:18Sure.
00:18But I appreciate the criticism. You know, I think another, another thing that I think
00:24made the show great was you could see growth in Kelly from the time she walked in that studio to
00:31that audition to, till the time she made it to the end. You can see growth in me, in Ruben.
00:36Ruben stopped wearing the jerseys after a certain point. Fantasia grew. And a lot of that was
00:41because we would get criticism every week. We cared what the judges said, not only because
00:47we didn't want them to say something mean, right? But also because we would take it and then go
00:53back and next week say, don't do this again. Or they said, I'm singing too many ballads. Sing
00:58something up tempo. You would make a point to, to improve yourself. And I, I don't see that,
01:03you know, I went back a few seasons ago to mentor.
01:07Yeah, right.
01:08And Iyam Tangi was one of the kids who I mentored and so talented. You just hear in the room with
01:15him when he opened his mouth, it's like something hits you and wow. I don't think I've heard that
01:20with anyone else that I've listened to sing. So great. But he stayed doing the same thing every
01:27episode. And I kept, I did watch more that season because I was sort of invested. And I kept
01:33thinking, God, tell him to put the guitar down and sing something without it. Tell him to do
01:37something different. I don't want him to not be himself, but let me see you have some range. And
01:41like, sometimes I thought to myself, like, what's the point of the judges? If we could save so much
01:47time, if we would just skip over the 45 to 50 seconds where they're all going to say you did a
01:51lovely job and you're a great star. I mean, they all are stars, but they, some of them I think
01:56could be so much better if they were pushed a little bit more.
01:57Do you feel like Carrie might do that?
01:59I hope so. I think she certainly knows the value of it. She, she certainly didn't get criticized
02:04any because she was so damn good, but she knows the value of having some construction,
02:10constructive criticism because she was there. She's also very nice. And so she might not as a mom,
02:15she might not have it in her, but I do hope she has the ability to, you know,
02:18she knows what it's like to be there and hopefully she will want to see them improve.
02:23Yeah. We got to get you back behind the judges table.
02:25I might be too mean. I mean, I wouldn't be mean for the sake of being mean, but I do think I would
02:30want, I just, you know, and this may be the dad in me too. My kid doesn't, my kid thinks it's mean
02:35when I tell him, when I send him his grades in the morning by texting him like, I just saw you
02:40got a such and such on this, but it's not mean. It's because I know you can do better. Yes,
02:44you have all A's and B's. That's wonderful. But imagine if you had all A's.
02:48Did Simon ever apologize for anything he ever said to you?
02:50He didn't need to apologize. I mean, he did say some harsh things and he did tell me one time
02:56that he preferred me with his eyes closed, which see, I appreciate that you laugh at that because
03:01I laugh at it now too, but it's 2024 now. So we're not allowed to say things like that.
03:06So when I've said that to other people, they're like, Oh, that's so horrible.
03:10No, you know what? He was saying it for TV and it was, and I'm, I'm still here.
03:16He must still have his eyes closed.