American Idol has had a time of it lately, with former contestants bashing the show and expressing their gripes. Smash’s Jennifer Hudson is no exception. While it is true that American Idol has seen far more contestants than any other music reality show go on to have successful careers, it has seen a huge decline in ratings.

It could be due to the fact that the original judges, Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, and Paula Abdul’s chemistry cannot be duplicated. Some will say that the show is hanging on by a thread. According to EURWeb, Jennifer Hudson thinks that maybe American Idol’s golden days are over.

During Jennifer Hudson’s days on Idol, in which Fantasia won, she was told that she would never make it by Simon Cowell. Hudson went on to reach major star status, receiving the coveted Oscar award for herDreamgirls role. Now the Weight Watchers spokesperson is starring alongside former American Idol, Katherine McPhee in the hit show, Smash. So much for her not making it.

Hudson’s co-star, Katherine McPhee told EURWeb, “I think people love to hang onto the ‘American Idol’ title, particularly the media.” “It’s not something that I go up to [Hudson] and say like, ‘Hey, how was your experience on “American Idol?”’ I’m sure if she was sitting here we’d both say we’re really incredibly grateful for the platform that it gave us, but it did what it was supposed to do, which was give us that platform to move on to things that we ultimately really dreamed of doing. And that’s what’s been so fantastic.”

But have we seen the last days of Idol? With new judges Nikki Minaj and Mariah Carey in the picture it seems as if the creators of the show are really trying to milk the cow. Instead of the show being a true and honest competitive show for hopefuls, viewers can’t keep their eyes off of the brewing mess between the judges.

Other Idol contestants who have gone on to be very successful, as a result of the show are Kelly Clarkson, Phillip Phillips, Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry, Adam Lambert, and Clay Aiken, to name a few. Viewers will have to keep watching to see if Idol can give us another breakthrough artist or if this year will continue to be a redundant boxing outlet for the Minaj Carey catfight.

– Naturally Moi