14 DAY TRIAL // American Idol has only Mariah Carey as official judge for the new season right now, but rapper Nicki Minaj is this close to signing on the dotted line as well, if recent reports are accurate. The only problem is that Mariah wants to be the only female judge on the panel.
The other day, word got out online that Nicki was in talks with AI producers to judge next season of the show, which would mean she'd have to share the panel with Mariah and probably Randy Jackson, whose return hasn't yet been confirmed.
Today, TMZ is claiming to have it on very good authority that Mariah is super upset that producers would even think to bring Nicki on board when they specifically led her to believe she'd be the only female judge on the panel.
In fact, says the celebrity gossip e-zine, Mariah is so angry that she even hung up on the producers when they called to let her know that Nicki was being considered as a serious contender.
“Nicki Minaj may well become a judge on American Idol, but it will be at the expense of Mariah Carey, who we're told hung up the phone when she was told Nicki was the top candidate,” TMZ writes, hinting that Mariah might even threaten to walk if producers insisted on bringing another woman on board.
“Sources connected with Idol tell TMZ Mariah was led to believe she would be the only woman on the judge's panel. Choosing Nicki would not only crush that expectation, it would add insult to injury because Nicki (29) is a lot younger than Mariah (42),” the e-zine adds.
The same insiders reveal that some of the producers also agree with Mariah on this, thinking that having 2 women and only 1 man on the panel would lead to an imbalance, in which case they'd be forced to bring another male judge on board.
Should Randy leave too, that would mean finding 2 other new judges besides Nicki.
Then there's this, TMZ claims: “sources connected with the show say they're worried... if the judges end up being Mariah, Nicki and Randy... middle America might not welcome the blackout.”
According to the same media outlet, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and Enrique Iglesias are in the running for judge as well.
Entertainment Weekly doubts the accuracy of this report, as likely as it may sound. However, assuming it is on the mark and that Mariah is really fuming that producers want Nicki Minaj as judge, here's how EW pictures the whole thing going down.