Is Demi Lovato Going To Be A New American Idol Judge?

Last night on American Idol Demi Lovato made a surprise visit to the stage as host Ryan Seacrest invited her out to meet the crowd. Although Ryan made it sound like an unplanned appearance the show was ready with background music and a short Q&A on her tour. Could FOX have been testing the waters for Demi Lovato as an American Idol judge for 2015?

Demi Lovato on American Idol
Demi Lovato on American Idol – Source: FOX

We’ve suspected that with the lower ratings and subsequent lower ad revenue for American Idol that FOX wouldn’t be able to justify the lofty price tag JLo demands to sit in that center chair. (I’d be willing to do it for several million less than the $17.5 mil she requires.) Perhaps Demi could be that right for for American Idol 2015’s judges panel?

While The X Factor was cancelled anyway, Lovato had not been expected to return as she wanted to get back to singing and touring. If she wraps that up by this Fall then she could fit in the schedule of sitting between Harry Connick Jr. and Keith Urban should everything else return next season.

What do you think of Demi Lovato as an American Idol judge? Would she be a good replacement for JLo?

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44 Comments

  1. She would be a fantastic replacement!
    Earlier this season I liked current panel. but now, I can’t see enthusiasm among them except for Harry. They should replace JLo and Keith.

  2. ANYONE is better than jlo except for niki minaj and Mariah carey!! bring back kara dioguardi

  3. replace all of the moron judges… keith, J.ho, and a$$hat Harry. Give Demi a shot, bring in a younger panel of judges… maybe Adam Lambert and Taylor Swift?

  4. Based on what her comments were last night, I would say PLEASE NO. I was not impressed with her on her first go-round on Idol. I was not impressed with her on X-Factor. I still like Keith. Harry has some good comments, but I think his comments are sometimes over-the-head of the contestants as well as viewers like me. I think different guest female judges might add some variety to the show, as long as they have the ability to judge. They could also perform–maybe Demi could be one of them. Would love to see Dolly Parton as a guest judge.

    • ty i agree, no good, way too unexperienced. They need old school females if females at all.

    • Stevie Nicks if you want experience, and as a mentor she was excellent. Randy is a HORRIBLE mentor as he always had favorites. He is a guitar player, not a mentor. Exit stage left Mr. Jackson. The band keeps playing over the contestants and out of tune way to many times.

  5. They need to have a rotation scheme for next season — every week a past A.I. winner comes on for judging on Wednesday night. Thursday night, they play whatever during vote results. Easy, cheap, good entertainment.

  6. Keep Keith, Keep Harry. Find another female judge who can actually deliver quality content… not just flash up the bench. No more divas.

    Demi’s got a lot of work to do to as a commentator, obviously, after last night’s mediocre 2-liners.

    The other option is whether to add a 4th guest judge (or use this as a possible replacement for JLo); bring back, every week, a different former AI winner. They can judge on Wednesdays and perform Thursdays. Simple, easy, good entertainment.

    • actually, demi talks a lot as a judge. she gives constructive and honest criticism.. she doesn’t sugar-coat anything. you could tell she was nervous last night. they kept putting her on the spot.

      • You think she didn’t know she would be put on the spot? Was she not prompted to stand behind the big stage doors when Ryan called her out?? Come on, she knew she was going to be the ‘guest’ judge that night, sitting next to Randy, the ‘ex-judge’.

        “She was nervous” is hardly passable here.

      • Ryan invited her a day before. It’s not her audience and as a demi fan i can tell when she’s nervous.. she stutters a lot. but i know she’s a good judge because i saw her on x factor for 2 seasons. she gives good critiques. she was a bad mentor(she’s still pretty young) but she was a great judge. she always knew what she was talking about.

    • She has a lot to offer as far as judging goes, even Simon thought so. Who knows what happened last night. Maybe she just wasn’t into it. She’s young, but she does know singing and if
      she has to judge pure vocals, she’d do fine. But she doesn’t want to be a judge anyway. She wants to focus on her musical career at the moment which is probably better since she is so young. I think purely for ratings sake they’d do better with someone older than Demi just because no one really takes her seriously because she’s young and came from Disney even if she does have talent. She hasn’t really found herself as an artist, so.

      • It might be that she wasn’t in to it.. you might be right about that. she’s said she doesn’t miss judging at all and doesn’t want to do that anymore. i really think they were testing her, though. maybe she’d be able to go back as a judge next year after touring. idol is different from x factor and i think she’d like it much better.

      • She’d definitely be better on AI if she was to do any show within that type. What she wasn’t ready for was the mentoring on X Factor. I’m not sure tho since she also has a new album she’ll be working on.

  7. I would love to see Simon Cowell back as a judge. There was an article written earlier with him hinting about returning. Could it be so? It wouldn’t matter to me if there were 3 male judges.

  8. These A.I. Sound Crew still need a lot of work on which mic to open & when and which to close.

    Last night was another stellar example of poor mic-manship.

      • You would think, by now, they’d have figured out the sound system of the new place…!

    • Amen! I’m not the only one and someone needs to tell Ricky it’s not about him. His band has been playing ahead of and behind the singers and out of tune. Combo of the sound techs and the band not playing well. Waaay to loud and off..do they not know the songs?? Plus the singers and even guest singers are having trouble with their ear pieces and hearing themselves. This has been going on for years and just gets worse. Plus Randy and the bands renditions for some singers is so wrong and off. The bands to big and the sound sucks.

      • That fault lies entirely with the sound crew. I doubt the sound crew ever hears what is being broadcast out to the viewing public. When the band is over playing the singer, that’s all sound crew… i.e., the singer’s mic is not amp’d up enough. It may sound fine in the sound booth on-site, but by the time it gets broadcast and re-assembled in our t.v. sets, it sounds awful.

        They needed to do a better job of doing a thorough, complete sound check, given 99% of their audience is NOT in the studio with them.

      • You can see the new stage is all about light & stage effects. They sunk a ton of money into stage performance. Whether that was to generate interest among viewers to want to come to LA and see the show live, or a gimmick to get Live viewers to send out tweets and instagrams and whatnot, or to one-up The Voice, who knows?

        For all the upgrading of the stage from the Kodak Theater to where they are now, they lost track of a critical aspect of sound quality. Someone dropped the ball on that .. and, yes, the number of fumbles with the mic is noticeable. I think part of that falls back to AI trying to task the singers with creating performances rather than just stringing out ‘stand-and-deliver’ ballads—which eventually put the audience to sleep last year.

        If you don’t have singers running around on stage, you won’t have nearly as many issues with mic-battery-packs falling off or ear pieces popping out.

  9. Demi Lovato was bad enough on X Factor – she would only bring down Idol further. I barely even recognize American Idol these days, from the smaller circular set to no original judges to talentless wannabe singers. The ratings keep falling every week – can we please just get some good management running Idol? It’s time to regain some of Idol’s identity that has been lost. Bring on some alumni judges and Paula Abdul and then I might actually watch.

  10. Hiring Demi as a judge would be the worst idea since hiring Nicki Minaj. And they better not keep the current panel AND hire Demi. Didn’t they learn last year that having 4 judges on this show DOESN’T work!?

  11. no way usually women don’t make good judges they ride too much on emotions are way too bias. After last year’s experience w/all the juvenile cat fights,,,,,,,almost wrecked the show. First JLo is all for giving up the save and then……….we should have saved it for my favorite Malaya boo hoo………..what’s that all about………..?. Harry is very professional and being fun at the same time.(Maybe taking the girl on his shoulders was an awkward moment unless it was his own kid.) I bet you if the change would have not been made the show would probably go under. We either need a woman that can actually be consistent or get another male judge. Sorry JLo you are not the best role model and your papi song was the worst song ever no class and gives a beautiful person like you a rather bad name sorry. Your fashion has gone down hill as well. Can’t women just age gracefully instead of acting ridiculous??? The clothes she wears on the show is sleazy and for a forty year old……..well something needs to be done about that…………..you ain’t no spring chicken.

    • I agree with all of that! Nothing against female judges – I am sure they could POTENTIALLY work, but so far the blind emotion they bring to the show, and the weirdness of not acting their ages, has made me think it hasn’t worked yet. The reason I like this season is because Harry is so good at looking past how “cute” a performance may have been and actually looking at whether or not it worked, and if it would be market-able.

    • Sexist bull, the producers give each job their role. One of those jealous women huh? What a load of bunk.

      • does Dev stand for Diva? u fit right in jealous???? of who u or the incompetent female judges of A I. Laecherlich & unglaublich!!! Vielleicht solltest du nicht Leute kritieren von denen du keine Ahnung hast?! hm haeh was???

  12. Her voice annoyed the heck out of me, and she seemed to stumble her way through giving any sort of thoughts when asked, and even once they came out they were sort of wishy washy. Maybe she is a good judge somewhere else, but from what I saw she was just painful to listen to. I LOVE Harry and Keith as judges. Switch out Jennifer for someone else and I would be perfect. I know they will always have one female in the judging, so I don’t know who it could be that would make me happy. Just not a diva or some air headed younger girl.

  13. Jennifer Lopez should stay; she can sing and is a seasoned veteran. I’d like Mariah to judge alongside the three they have as well.

    • sounds like too much drama w/the divas, the cat fights from last year were so unprofessional and I’d rather see the show go on. I’d rather have Simon come back along w/Harry and Keith.

      • That was all Minaj. They totally dissed Marian who actually gave them technical advice but was last and always rushed.

  14. Love how she told Jessica she has a beautiful voice! The judges have been so unfair to her.

    • My goodness Dev Diva your opinions suck big time.
      Jessica may have talent but her attitude sucks she don’t deserve to win and guaranteed won’t!!
      Voila & Amen

      • You’re such a jerk off! Or perhaps I should speak like you and say “you beez such a jerk off”. She’s better off not winning, their contact sucks and the majority of Idol winners didn’t make it. Jennifer Hudson was also constantly put down by the judges and s few years later she was picking up her Oscar. You’re entitled to your opinion, I just don’t happen to agree. Later j.o.

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