The long awaited debut of Ellen DeGeneres on American Idol was… a hit! In the days leading up to the show, fans were very much divided in their opinion on Ellen’s inclusion as the fourth judge. But happily for Ellen, her performance was good enough to keep the fans and the show’s creator Simon Fuller more than happy. The show also did very well in the ratings game.
However the real test for Ellen was her own critical self-analysis. Passing that was her major concern and in reflection she said “I was honest with them (the singers). I was concerned about tiptoeing around too much, but I didn’t”.
Congratulatory tweets, messages and phone calls after the show have vindicated any fears that Ellen might have had about her performance; even Simon Fuller was quoted as saying that he was “really, really happy”.
The Idol debut marks another good day for Ellen as her daytime talk show was also renewed for a further three years. The much expected war of words between her and über judge Simon Cowell did not materialize, but Ellen did hint that this was not how it was going to be. She said that Hollywood Week was all about the difficult task of pruning the 181 contestant to just 24 which did not leave much time for banter between the judges. She also said that she didn’t know how things will turn out in the later live stages of the show, describing it as “That’s going to be an intersting thing”.
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