Twenty years ago, when “American Idol” winner and judge Carrie Underwood was just a competitor in Season 4, host Ryan Seacrest asked her if she had seen any stars while performing in Hollywood.
“It’s been pretty cloudy,” she answered, misunderstanding the question. It’s a moment that “has haunted me literally for 20 years,” Underwood said in a video reflecting on her Hollywood week experience.
Now, in Season 23, Seacrest and Underwood have staged a skit paying homage to the jokey moment— complete with a surprise appearance from Flavor Flav.
In Monday night’s episode, which showed contestants vying for their spot in the Top 24, Seacrest asked Underwood the same question, prompting the Public Enemy co-founder and hype man to appear on screen.
“Well, at least you get to make stars now,” Seacrest said, as Flavor Flav added “because this is ‘American Idol’ — yeah, boy!”
Flavor Flav isn’t the only celebrity to make an appearance on Monday night’s episode. Country singer and rapper Jelly Roll stepped into his position as the show’s first-ever artist-in-residence during the episode, offering contestants performance tips and quirky encouragement (“you’re a yellow duck in a white duck pond, you don’t gotta quack or flap to get attention,” for instance).
