That didn’t take long. Following Steven Tyler‘s Thursday afternoon announcement, Friday morning Jennifer Lopez confided to her friend and, as of this moment, former co-worker Ryan Seacrest on his radio program “On the Air” that she’s not returning to “American Idol” either, confirming rumors about her imminent departure that have been swirling about for weeks.
“It just started feeling like it was a lot, and something had to give,” she haltingly began.
“So does that mean we’re co-workers, or not?” Seacrest bluntly replied, to which J.Lo responded, “I really was dreading this phone call with you.”
“…I honestly feel that the time has come, that I have to get back to doing the other things that I do, that I put kind of on hold because I love ‘Idol’ so much,” Lopez continued. “You have a lot of other responsibilities, and you have a lot of other things that you do, and you have to pay attention to those things too.”
Lopez and Tyler served as “Idol” judges for two seasons.
That just leaves Seacrest and Randy Jackson, who has been with the program for 11 seasons, and is either on the verge of getting a massive pay raise… or may decide to follow Tyler and Lopez out the door. Several news sources have pointed out that Jackson has yet to sign on for another season of “Idol” and, like his fellow former judges, may want to move on to greener pastures (even if by greener pastures we mean a yard carpeted with shredded paper currency instead of grass).
While still the highest rated non-sports program on TV, “Idol’s” ratings have declined significantly since the peak of its run, and were off by about third over the most recent season.
