Jennifer Lopez says she may not return to ‘American Idol’. Translation: Pay up!
Jennifer Lopez only signed a one year contract with American Idol, which was probably an incredibly smart thing to do. After being paid a reported $12 million for the first season, Jennifer may be holding out for more money for her second season. “I don’t know. I haven’t been forced to make a decision and I’m glad about that because honestly I’m very on the fence about it.” She told BBC Radio 1.
She went on, “You get to know [the contestants]. You get to know their hopes and their dreams on camera, off camera. You’re helping them off camera, you’re helping them on camera and it’s this crazy ride you go on together. You definitely get involved, I definitely get involved. I am very emotional as you can see from the show. That’s just how I am.
I had an amazing time doing it and I loved it but I have a lot other things happening, and it’s going to come down to me making a choice of what I want to do for the next year and we’re not really at the breaking point of “You have to make a decision right now!” I’m just really enjoying the time of just waiting and seeing.”
Hmm could “waiting and seeing” mean – “see what Fox will pay me for season 2″? Of course it does.
After all – Fox paid Simon Cowell a shocking $35 million per season. PER SEASON!
Lopez’s current salary: a reported $12 million. How high could her demand ultimately go? Another $23 million, if the Simon Cowell budget is your barometer.
That’s right, Idol’s top-earning judge for eight years running commanded $35 million per season at the end of his tenure, or about $642,201 per hour, using season 9’s total airtime. And while Lopez is a proven entity with some box office cachet and a current hit on the Billboard charts (thanks, in large part, to its premiere and multiple plugs on Idol), is her contribution to the show really worth that much?
Let’s consider: The Bronx beauty has the crabby Brit beat in the looks department, as viewers tuned in just to see what Lopez was wearing or how her hair was done, but when it came to commenting on the performances, it took all season for her to work up the courage to be anything less than fawning. Were it not for Casey Abrams’s surprise peck and the occasional cooing “baby” that she would bestow on a contestant, and, dare we say, J Lo sometimes bordered on dull.
With that in mind, who’s really getting more out of this relationship? True, Fox was able to avert a season 10 ratings disaster by enlisting Lopez for a year on the panel (judge Steven Tyler is signed on through season 11), and the numbers stayed flat, but after nine months of work plus that hefty paycheck, J Lo also walked away with a resurrected career and a radio smash (”On the Floor”) on her hands – her first in nearly a decade.
Filed under American Idol, Jennifer Lopez | 2 Comments »
