This week America's Got Talent unveiled its new four-person judges panel in New Orleans for Season Eight Auditions.
The new judges, Project Runway host Heidi Klum and Style Network Mel B: It's a Scary World star Melanie Brown haven't exactly been showered with love.
Instead they've been criticized and apparently, even booed.
TMZ reported that at the New Orleans auditions, a popular local brass band played, only to have Brown retort that she didn't like their style of music; which allegedly pushed the crowd to respond with jeers, shouting things like, "Go home!"
Of course we should take these reports with a grain of salt. After all, former America's Got Talent contestants have previously accused producers of orchestrating every detail of the show, including whether the audience applauds or boos an audition performance.
So it is entirely possible that producers encouraged the audience to heckle the new judge.
Why? Well, last season saw AGT's ratings drop by more than 30% despite the recruitment of shock-jock Howard Stern, and the dismal Season Seven caused some of us to wonder if America had run out of talent.
So maybe the producers decided to create some additional drama or just generate news coverage for their fading franchise. (If it was the latter, they certainly succeed.)
America's Got Talent returns for an eighth season this summer; maybe then we'll see whether the investment in two new judges has paid off or whether it will be as disappointing as the return on their $20 million paycheck to Stern.
Photo © NBC.
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