Kelly Clarkson Reunites With Her ‘American Idol’ Judges on Talk Show (VIDEO)

The Kelly Clarkson Show - Season 1
Adam Torgerson/NBCUniversal

Seventeen years after Kelly Clarkson won American Idol, she reunited with her judges.

She had Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Wednesday, and the four looked back at her audition and season of the competition series.

“I actually genuinely do not believe we would be sitting here today if you hadn’t entered the show that year,” Cowell told Clarkson. “The whole premise of this show was we had to find a star who was going to sell records.”

The judges all agreed on the importance of her delivery of her winning song at the end. “It was a game-changer,” Abdul said, with Jackson adding, “we looked at each other at the end at the finale and said, ‘Wow. This thing is really going to work.’ I think that was the moment that we knew.”

Watch the video below as Clarkson shares behind-the-scenes secrets about her and Justin Guarini’s live duet. Plus, see her and the judges talking about her audition and find out which judge knew she’d win that day.

In the episode, the judges also talked about the worst singers and played the “name game,” in which Cowell gave Jackson and Abdul words they had to use in critiques.

Cowell also revealed that he’d like to work with his former co-stars again. “Unlike the majority, you are the same person off camera as you are on camera,” he told Clarkson. Watch the video below to see him explain why the series worked so well “even though everyone remembers all the craziness.”

Finally, Guarini joined Clarkson and the judges on the show to recall his own American Idol experience in 2002 and Cowell, Abdul, and Jackson remembered their reaction to his audition.

The Kelly Clarkson Show, Weekdays, check local listings