What to Know
Carrie Underwood clearly wants to seem unfazed by all of the booing she’s experienced as a judge on American Idol. And maybe she truly is. But some critics aren’t buying it. The country singer, 42, previously took to social media to warn everyone that she did not receive the most positive reactions from the audience during “Hollywood Week.” At the time, she wrote, “Spoiler alert… I get booed A LOT from our Hollywood Week audience,” which is an interesting thing to choose to share on social media.
Then, on March 2, she wrote, “Boo me. I don’t care.😂😜🤪.” But some critics were basically like, “If you truly don’t care, why do you keep posting about it?”
Carrie got booed due to seeming harsh… but that’s definitely not the only time it happened.
One particular moment from the March 2 episode of American Idol has garnered a lot of attention. Contestant Mor chose to perform an original song, and people were clearly not happy with Carrie’s reaction to it.
When talking about his decision to perform an original song, Mor said, “I feel like I have a story to tell that can impact and help people. There’s definitely moments where I have doubts if this is the right choice or not. Especially a song you wrote that no one knows. It puts a lot of weight on the performance itself.”
Boo me. I don’t care. 😂😜🤪@AmericanIdol
— Carrie Underwood (@carrieunderwood) March 3, 2026
Before Carrie even shared her thoughts on the performance, she seemed to sense that the audience would disagree with her. “I feel you guys are gonna boo me,” she said. “It’s coming — just bring it on. I love it. Your boos are feeding me.”
She then critiqued Mor’s song choice and said, “In a room like this, for you to bring an original song with that incredible band sitting behind you twiddling their thumbs… I feel like it was just a missed opportunity.” This was clearly an unpopular opinion, but Carrie got booed at other points too.
At one point, she questioned why people don’t boo her fellow judge Luke Bryan.
Because of how the audience tends to react to her, she turned to Luke and asked, “Why don’t they boo you?” He responded, “I don’t know, I’m trying to get booed.” Carrie then turned to the audience and asked, “You’re not gonna boo him?”
Carrie Underwood gets booed on the set of ‘American Idol’. pic.twitter.com/PjFlnCYlAf
— MR. POP (@MrPopOfficial) March 3, 2026
The clip of this interaction has been circulating on social media, and people have lots to say about it. For one, there are still a decent number of critics who think the booing is related to Carrie’s decision to perform at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. “Well, you publicly jumped on the Trump train,” one critic pointed out. “It’s understandable.” At the same time, many of the people who were upset about Carrie’s Trump inauguration performance say they’re no longer watching the show (or maybe they never were).
Regardless of the reason for the booing, several others said that Carrie’s reactions to being booed make it seem like she really does care. “for someone that said they didn’t care about being booed SHE CARES A LOT,” another critic wrote. They had the same reaction to her recent X post.
When Carrie took to X to assert that she doesn’t care about being booed, tons of people argued that her social media activity suggests otherwise. “Girl,” one critic commented. “You run to Twitter [now X] every time to post about it. You care.”
