Kara DioGuardi joined the American Idol judging panel this series and says she didn’t realise what a huge undertaking the show would be.

“I probably in my own way didn’t really take in what a huge thing it was,” she told The AP.

“Until I kind of showed up and was like, ‘Oh my God! What am I doing here? This is, like, huge!’ And then it really hit me when we went live that, wow, ‘I’ve got to speak live in front of 30 million people?’”

She continued: “It’s not an easy job. I mean, there was nothing wrong with that panel. It wasn’t like I had to fix something. It was great. So to come in and kind of be part of it was really tricky.

“So I look at it sometimes and I think, ‘All right, maybe I could have done this better or that better,’ but I’m literally just trying not to act like a bumbling moron because I’m so, you know, nervous at times.”