Kara's also one of the permanent judges on Bravo's new reality competition, Platinum Hit, which airs Monday nights. Kara says there's one big difference between the writing sessions on the show and the ones she does in the real world.
"In a real-life writing session, you don't have a camera outside waiting for people to critique how the session went," she says. "I would have loved that, if somebody had taken Pink aside and asked, 'So what was the dumbest line Kara said in Sober?'
Kara took a few New York minutes today to answer questions for Idol Chatter.
You look so much more comfortable on Platinum Hit than you ever did on American Idol. What's the difference?
There are so many differences. I'd never really been on television like that. And the Bravo format allows me to be more me, which is more of a New Yorker. I kind of say it like it is; I don't really sugarcoat anything.
In the music industry, it's so competitive. You're not doing any favors for the contestants if you don't tell them what they're not doing right and how to improve it. Idol is such a family-friendly show that, at times when you did go negative on contestants, it was unnerving to the audience. There was a certain positivity that they craved, and it went against my grain not to point out what they weren't doing well.
Also, on Idol, I was fitting into a chemistry that already existed. This show is from the ground up.
At least two of the contestants on Platinum Hit have backgrounds on American Idol. Jes Hudak was a Hollywood contestant in Season 5, and Jackie Tohn was a semifinalist in Season 8, when you were a judge. Did that have anything to do with them getting the new gig?
No, they were completely picked before I was even on the show. That happened months before.
Do you think Platinum Hit will produce a hit?
I think there are a few that could definitely be songwriters and do that as a living. And they get so much better as we go on. It's unbelievable, week to week, how much better they get. Part of it's because we're so hard on them. I think it's strange for the audience to watch at times, because we're really difficult on them.
This is one of the hardest business to be in. When I think back on my own career, I was so bad as a songwriter. Thank God for the people who told me, "Honey, you're kidding, right? You're never going to go anywhere with that line."
You announced today on Regis & Kelly that you'll be making your Broadway debut in the role of Roxie Hart in Chicago. How'd you get that gig?
They called me, and I auditioned. The dancing is a problem for me, because I'm not a trained dancer. So I just worked my butt off. It probably took me a week to get the dancing down for the audition. Now I've got my hips moving ways they never moved.
It's a great new challenge. Idol opened all these doors for me, and what it did more than anything was face my stage fright. Now I can do these things.
You just judged the Folgers Jingle Contest for the second year. What separated winner Courtney R.'s entry from the rest?
It was her voice. If coffee could be a voice, it would be her voice. It was warm, it was honeyed. She almost had a Diana Krall aspect to her. And I love the singer-songwriter format, because you can talk about your real experience, and she spoke about that.
After the contest, we listened to everyone's original songs. I had a half-hour mentoring session with her, where she played me other songs and we went through them. I gave her suggestions about lyrics and melodies. That's the greatest thing about this, that you get to spend quality time with the contestants when they win.
See photos of: Chicago, Kara DioGuardi
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