{"id":332552,"date":"2025-12-05T19:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/332552\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T19:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:05:07","slug":"infamous-american-idol-judge-apologizes-for-being-so-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/332552\/","title":{"rendered":"Infamous \u2018American Idol\u2019 judge apologizes for being so mean"},"content":{"rendered":"

It appears that Simon Cowell has a few regrets. <\/p>\n

During an appearance on The New York Times\u2019 \u201cThe Interview\u201d podcast<\/a>, the English television personality, record executive, and entrepreneur apologized for his behavior toward contestants when he was a judge on \u201cAmerican Idol.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI did change over time,\u201d Cowell said. \u201cI did realize I\u2019ve probably gone too far. I was frustrated. I didn\u2019t particularly like, I still don\u2019t, audition days, because they\u2019re long and boring.\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cI would get fed up. And, of course, out of a hundred nice comments, what are they going to use? They\u2019re always going to use me being in a bad mood. I got that. What can I say? I\u2019m sorry. That was then. I\u2019m not proud of it. Let\u2019s put it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cowell, 66, was one of three original judges on the singing competition that became a cultural phenomenon. He became known as a harsh, brutally honest, sharp-tongued critic, calling out contestants for lake of star power and using phrases like \u201cThat was absolutely dreadful.\u201d<\/p>\n

His disposition was in sharp contrast to fellow judges Paula Abdul, who was more supportive, nurturing and empathetic and Randy Jackson, who offered grounded musician-first feedback and catchphrases like \u201cIt was a little pitchy, dawg.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cowell, who has judged on numerous other competition as well, was on the show from 2002 to 2010. Clips of his barrages were viral before viral was a thing, and compilations of Cowell\u2019s harshest comments<\/a> still live on YouTube. <\/p>\n

Cowell told the Times he \u201cwasn\u2019t trying to be\u201d mean \u201con purpose,\u201d but was frustrated that poor auditions would prevent the show from finding good singers. <\/p>\n

Years removed he admits he was a bit harsh, but also said he knows his bluntness helped make the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I hear about these clips, I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, God,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBut then again, the upside, I suppose, with these clips is that it made the shows really popular worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It appears that Simon Cowell has a few regrets. During an appearance on The New York Times\u2019 \u201cThe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[6234,88,6235,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-332552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bestof","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-topix","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}