It’s been quite a journey for Carrie Underwood. She has actually become a bit of a controversial judge on this season of American Idol, the show she won in 2005, because she is direct in her feedback and is willing to say some things the other judges won’t. It’s actually pretty constructive, but compared to Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie, it definitely can come across as more “strict,” but I think in the long run, she’s doing contestants a big service by telling them what they need to hear in order to get better and stay in the competition. Of course, Carrie had the world’s harshest judge, of all-time, during her season when Simon Cowell was still on the show, alongside Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul, and while Cowell did predict Carrie would win very early in the competition, he still dished out tough feedback, as he always did for all contestants. These fans wouldn’t be able to watch if Carrie was even 5% as harsh as he was… But the show has obviously changed a lot over the years since Carrie won over 20 years ago, and now it’s a lot fluffier and the judges are much, much less harsh, and she has clapped back at Idol fans on X over all of the booing, saying she “doesn’t care” because she’s just doing her job when it comes to giving feedback that isn’t completely sunshine and rainbows: Boo me. I don’t care. @AmericanIdol — Carrie Underwood (@carrieunderwood) March 3, 2026 If there’s anyone they should be listening to, it’s her. Carrie won the show and has had arguably the best career out of anyone who ever stepped foot on an Idol stage, and alongside Kelly Clarkson, I’d say they’re the absolute bar in terms of what a contestant could ever hope to get out of winning the show. And during an interview with Billboard, Carrie was asked if she could go back in time and do anything differently about her season, she says she wished she would’ve taken more pictures and documented more of her life during this time in terms of keeping certain outfits and things of that nature, too: “I’m very angry with myself because when I was on the show, I wasn’t taking any pictures. I’m thinking, ‘Why? Why didn’t you do that? Why didn’t you save these things?’ We had a girl come in that had a pair of jeans that I wore on the show, and she told me, ‘My grandpa bought these at a charity auction and I wore them on the show,’ and I asked, ‘Can I buy them back from you?’ Why did I let them go? Why didn’t I keep more things and just document things a little better?” To be fair, this was way before Instagram and people feeling the need to share everything they did at all hours of they day, but I totally get her point in that this was a very special and exciting time in her life, so I’m sure in hindsight she wishes she would’ve kept everything just to have those memories in a physical form to look back on it. Now we’ve swung way too much in the other direction in my humble opinion, but I digress… In terms of what she’s loving about this season in particular, though, Carrie feels like all of the contestants are super unique and carving out their own lane early on in their musical careers: “There is a huge diversity of uniqueness — like, we have interesting voices. It’s not, ‘You remind me of this person’ or ‘You sound like this person,’ like, ‘I want to pigeonhole you in this lane.’ There are some people that really stand out — and a lot of inexperience, but in a really great way, raw and just starting out.” This week, Idol is heading to Hawaii for their first-ever “Ohana Round,” which sounds like a dream in and of itself… Hey, if you’re gonna got booed, you might as well get paid millions of dollars to do it in Hawaii… View this post on Instagram The post Carrie Underwood Reveals What She Would Go Back & Change About Her Winning Season Of ‘American Idol’ In 2005 first appeared on Whiskey Riff.