Nick Cannon Defends Mariah Carey's 'American Idol' Comments
Nick Cannon, 33, is defending his wife Mariah Carey's scathing assessment of her "American Idol" experience that left many questioning if she called fellow entertainer Nicki Minaj the devil.
"I don't think she was speaking directly about [Nicki]," Cannon told Access Hollywood recently. "I think she was talking about the situation in general."
Minaj, the 30-year-old rapper, has exchanged brash words with the 43-year-old singer-songwriter throughout season 12 of the nationally televised singing competition. Carey recently reflected on the experience and her fellow judge, likening it to hell.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"Honestly, I thought it was gonna be a three-person panel," Carey told New York City's Hot 97 radio host Angie Martinez recently. "They gave me a nice dangling monetary moment. It was like going to work every day in hell with Satan."
Carey's husband and television mogul insisted that his wife would have named Minaj specifically if she wanted to refer to the rapper as Satan.
"If my wife wanted to [call Nicki Satan], she would've said that," he told "Access Hollywood." "She has no problem [saying] how she feels!"
Carey made light of her comments, but admitted that the experience was not a pleasant one.
"Nah, I'm just playing. It didn't affect me that much," Carey told Martinez. "I was disappointed."
Carey and Minaj appeared as judges on season 12 of the show along with singer Keith Urban and the series veteran and record producer, Randy Jackson. Despite the well-known names on the judges' panel, publications like Forbes and The New York Daily News reported that "American Idol" underwent its biggest ratings drop in over a decade.
"American Idol" executive producer Nigel Lythgoe said that a feud between Carey and Minaj may have hurt the show's chances during season 12.
"That got off to a bad start and that didn't help anything," Lythgoe told the website Zap2it previously. "I don't think we have good chemistry with the judges and that saddens me. They are good individually, but I miss the camaraderie we have had in the past."
