ELLEN TO REPLACE PAULA ABDUL

It’s been confirmed that out comedienne and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres will replace Paula Abdul as a permanent fourth judge on American Idol.

Abdul left the hit show in July following an apparent dispute over her salary. A number of guest judges, including Victoria Beckham, took over her role during the audition phase of the latest season of Idol that recently took place across the US.

DeGeneres announced her new job during the recording of her popular talk show on Wednesday, which will be show in the US today:

“We’ve been dealing with this for the last couple of weeks and I’ve been dying to tell everyone. It’s just been so hard to keep it a secret and we just finally got the okay and I’m so excited,” said the lesbian icon.

“It is going to be so much fun. I don’t know how it happened myself but I have not missed one episode of that show. I’ve watched every single thing. I love everything about it and I love music, as you know. Hopefully I’m the people’s point of view because I’m just like you… I’m not looking at it in a critical way from the producer’s mind. I’m looking at it as a person who is going to buy the music and is going to relate to that person. So I’m hopefully going to be that voice of what we’re all doing at home.”

American Idol, with DeGeneres alongside co-judges Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Kara DioGuardi, returns to American television in January next year. She will continue to host her award-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show at the same time.