According to Page Six, Lionel Richie, 77, announced his return to the "American Idol" judging panel for season 25 during Luke Bryan's Luke Bryan & Friends concert at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena on Thursday, appearing on the arena's big screen while Bryan and Carrie Underwood made the announcement live. The news lands days after Richie's children said they want their dad to slow down following his third hospitalization of the year.
ABC needed a press conference and found a better one: a sold-out country arena with a stage, a crowd, and a Jumbotron already installed. A season 25 announcement inside someone else's paid show. A 20,000-person press conference where the crowd is the media, and nobody can skip a 40-foot face in the middle of a Bryan set.
The details are the joke. The Comeback Kid, fresh off his third hospitalization, one of them in the ICU, could not walk onto a stage, so he arrived virtually on the giant screen while the two country judges did the talking. The body is resting. The brand is on the wall. That is the entire economy in one frame, and per TV Insider the whole thing was billed as a surprise.
His kids, per Page Six, want him to "hit the pause button once in a while." His rep says he is "doing great" and "back on stage soon." One family is holding a hospital clipboard, and a network is holding a season logo. Pause is not in the deliverables.
YOUR TURN: If the doctor says rest and the network says season 25, who does the Jumbotron answer to?
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