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When American Idol airs live Sunday on the 2025 TV schedule, we’ll kick off the finals of its 23rd season, with the Top 14 taking the stage to honor the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. It was not an easy road to pare the 144 contestants who made it past auditions down to just 14, and it sounds like Katy Perry’s replacement, Carrie Underwood, may have struggled more than her counterparts when it came to sending artists home.
On the April 21 episode — which included a huge Ryan Seacrest gaffe that might have already had Carrie Underwood upset — the field was cut from 20 singers down to 14. Fan votes determined the first 10, then Underwood, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan were tasked with picking the last four. That meant crushing six artists’ dreams all at once, which the Season 4 champion said was nearly too much for her. Underwood told USA TODAY:
My brain was almost like: ‘Six! I can’t do it!’ We were pretty much aligned; there were a couple of concessions that had to be made, but all in all I think we’re happy with how it turned out, other than six people had to go home, which is a huge jump.
Coming back to American Idol as a judge 20 years after she won the show has been quite the nostalgia kick for Carrie Underwood, and you have to imagine she’s recalling how it felt for her fate to be in the hands of the three people on the other side of that table. It’s absolutely no surprise that she would find this first big elimination tough, especially on live TV.
While she appeared to downplay the drama, saying they were “pretty much aligned,” and ultimately happy with the singers they chose to move forward, Lionel Richie painted a slightly more hectic picture of the decision that had to be made in the time of one commercial break. He said:
The 2½ minutes was: ‘Come on, Carrie. Give us the answer.’ (Underwood said) ‘I don’t want any of them to leave!’ ‘Carrie, we’ve got a minute left. What is the answer?’ This is her first time around, and she’s on this side of the judges’ table.
Luke Bryan agreed that quick decisions had to be (and were) made. He said there were two contestants who they all agreed on to advance, but choosing the other two out of the eight remaining hopefuls proved to be pretty difficult.
In the end, considering their “whole body of work” up to that point in the show, Josh King, Ché Chesterman, Desmond Roberts and Amanda Barise got the judges’ nods. The six less-fortunate singers included Baylee Littrell (son of Backstreet Boy Brian Littrell) and Zaylie Windsor, who Carrie Underwood had compared to Taylor Swift during her audition.
I’m sure the eliminations aren’t going to get easier from here on out, but we’ll have to see how Carrie Underwood handles it all. The finals kick off at 8 p.m. ET April 27 and continue Monday, April 28, on ABC and streaming the next day on Hulu.
