Lovato talked to iVillage about X Factor and Britney Spears
The new season of The X Factor premieres on Sept. 12. How has your experience been so far?
The experience so far has been so much fun. It doesn’t feel like work at all, and I just have had so much fun working with Britney and Simon and L.A. We all get along really, really great, and it’s a lot of fun getting to see new talent and people with a lot of potential to be superstars.
There was a clip of Britney doling out some criticism on the show, and Simon recently called her mean. Is she really a mean judge?
He’s totally joking! With this show, there’s not really the mean one, the nice one, the funny one -- we don’t have the typical panel of judges. I think we’re all really honest and sometimes it can come off as mean. We also joke around, and we like to have a lot of fun. There’s definitely been times when me and Britney have said no to people when Simon and L.A. say yes. We just have a different view on pop stars and celebrities because we’re in the pop industry ourselves. Simon and L.A. know a lot, for sure -- but from an artist’s point of view, I feel maybe I’m more critical of the people on stage. For instance, if they say, "Oh, I didn’t have time to practice enough" or "I only got two hours of sleep," I think I’m a little bit more critical. I’m like, "If you want to make it in this industry, you sometimes don’t even get to sleep at night." There are no excuses.
Would you say it helps or hurts a contestant when they sing one of your songs?
I think that it doesn’t really hurt or help. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if it’s my song or somebody else’s. If they do a great job on it then they deserve to go through, and if they don’t then it's not meant to be. I think it hurts a lot of the contestants when they sing a Britney song, though.
You just can’t do a Britney song. You won’t do it justice. There’s only one Britney Spears and she has a very unique voice.
You can't top her.
As the two female judges, have you and Britney been bonding?
When we’re sitting on the panel and passing notes, we have a lot of fun. So I guess, yeah, a little bit. But I’m still getting to know her and hopefully someday we can hang out off-camera. But I know that we’re both super, super busy.
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