Queen Latifah's Thoughts About American Idol & Michael Jackson Night

When Summer rolls around Ellen's daily talk show goes on hiatus. Lucky for me the reruns still appear on my DVR and I'm able to catch up with some of the shows I missed the first time around.

(American Idol:  Idol finalist Lil Rounds and Queen Latifah performs "Cue The Rain" during the American Idol Finale - Wednesday, May 20th on Fox - © 2009 FOX BROADCASTING - Credit: Ray Mickshaw/FOX- All Rights Reserved).

Today I caught up with one of Ellen's shows from May of 2009 where she had the fabulous Queen Latifah on the show as one of her guests.  The talk show hostess  discussed Latifah's appearance on American Idol and her fabulous duet with finalist Lil Rounds.

Ellen pointed out that  Lil Rounds and Queen Latifah was fantastic.  Queen Latifah agreed.  She said "she's so cool."  Ellen asked "now when did you decide she was going to sing with you, at what point....?

The beautifully coiffed Latifah, who was blonde with her hair worn up and pulled to one side of her head, said "I guess it was part of the whole idea of the pros coming on and perform with the contestants and so they said they wanted to do my song Que The Rain."

(Image from Fox TV's American Idol: Idol finalist Lil Rounds and Queen Latifah perform "Cue The Rain" during the American Idol Finale, May 20 on FOX.  © 2009 FOX BROADCASTING - Photo Credit: Ray Mickshaw/FOX- All Rights Reserved).

Latifah told Ellen she hadn't even had time to see the actual performance yet because she has literally been working nonstop "since she got off the stage."

Queen Latifah also said about the American Idol show "it happens so fast."  Ellen said "not for me, it was a long show"  Queen Latifah said "my little tiny 3 minutes and 15 seconds" on the show  went really fast.  It flew by."

Ellen asked if Queen Latifah had been rooting for somebody to win Idol?  She also asked if she knew Lil Rounds before she appeared on the actual show with her.

Adam Lambert

Queen Latifah said she did and she watched the show from the beginning but she "got kinda busy" and she had a hard time catching up to it but she would "find out who was winning" and who was still on.  She said "I loved Adam from Day One, I thought he was like so different...you know what I mean?"

Latifah, when discussing Adam, said he was "surprisingly good.  You hear people tell the story...I wanted to come to Hollywood and make a name for myself and then they sing and you like 'you're never going to make a name for yourself' you're 'going to make a bad name for yourself.'"

Queen Latifah said Adam "was good from the beginning.  But I'm so happy for all of them, Chris seems like the sweetest guy in the whole world.  They're all winners when they come on that show."  Ellen agreed and said "they had a good group of people this year."

Michael Jackson

At one point when Queen Latifah was talking about her performance with Lil Rounds she did a hand movement with her fingers like Michael Jackson used to do and said to Ellen "a little ode to Michael Jackson."  This was definitely spine tingling since Ellen's show with Queen Latifah was filmed before Michael's recent and untimely death.

Danny Gokey

Ellen asked Latifah her opinion about the various American Idol contestants from the show.  Queen Latifah said "they had some real singers" on the show.

Latifah said "I loved Danny.  Danny won me over on The Michael Jackson night because everyone tries to perform these Michael Jackson songs and some of them were really bad and I felt really bad and it was painful to watch, honestly.  But Danny got up there and he was dancing and he was rocking out - he was one of the few people to me that night that owned it."

Latifah's New Album

Ellen asked Latifah to discuss her new album, which Ellen pointed out is a different kind of album.

Latifah said "it's kinda new, but it's kinda not."  She continued "my ver first album was hip hop but I had reggae on there, I had salsa on there, I had jazz, I had so many different types of music on there to influence me.  So my version of hip hop is really not typical.  So my album is called "Persona" and it will be out in July (2009)."

Queen Latifah To Retire At 40?

Ellen asked Queen Latifah about the fact she has said in the past she wanted to retire at forty.  Latifah told Ellen "I can't see myself retiring - there's nothing really to retire from.  I'm having fun.  I could see retiring if I was like bored and was in a dead end job and had been there for fifty years.  I really enjoy what I do, I have fun so as long as they want to see me on the screen and hear some music..."

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