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Harry Connick, Jr. and Keith Urban Open Up About the Lack of Diversity of American Idol Winners

After a long streak of white guy winners, the judges open up about diversity on the show

By Kristin Dos Santos, Sydney Bucksbaum Jan 28, 2015 9:00 PMTags
Watch: How New "American Idol" Changes Will Help Contestants

In the past few years, there has been a pattern in American Idol winners...and that pattern shows a distinct lack of diversity.

Except for the season 12 winner, Candice Glover, the majority of the previous winners have been white males. So when E! News sat down with American Idol judges Harry Connick, Jr. and Keith Urban, we had to ask...do the judges take diversity into account when voting on the Fox singing competition series?

"The best person takes it, the person who's really ready and can go the distance," Urban tells E! News. "At the end of the day, for me, it keeps coming down to that." 

Connick agrees, but he adds that diversity is definitely still a factor for him.

"Of course you have to consider diversity, because the people watching this show are diverse," Connick tells E! News. "As many genres as we can have represented that are appropriate to American Idol—like we had some opera singers come in and I don't think it's the right venue for opera—but we need to see R&B singers, we need to see country singers, we need to see ‘coffeehouse' whatever."

He continues, "Although we don't have a quota system per se, we've been very fortunate that a diverse group happened to end up in this top group because we want everybody to be represented."

Press play to watch our full interview with the judges above about diversity on the show, plus why the structural changes will help this season of American Idol!

American Idol airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on Fox.