Carrie Underwood Admits It’s Tough Saying No as ‘American Idol’ Judge (Exclusive)

It’s been 20 years since Carrie Underwood took the title of “American idol,” and after dozens of hits and eight Grammys, she’s coming home.

Carrie is replacing Katy Perry on “Idol,” alongside fellow judges Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan, and host Ryan Seacrest.

“Extra” caught up with the crew as they kicked off another season of auditions in NYC.

Seacrest said, “We’ve known each other for a long time… 20 plus years,” calling it “full-circle!”

Underwood told us of being back, “Everyone is so nice,” joking, “very good working conditions here.”

She went on, “It’s part of me and it is part of my history, and hopefully I've learned a lot from experience on the show and everything in the industry and hopefully I can bring that into my advice to those in front of us.”

Carrie confessed being a judge can be rough, admitting, "I'm a people pleaser for sure." She shared, “Whenever somebody is saying, ‘I can sing another one. I have this song, I have this song'... I did one yesterday, I was like, 'Okay.' But then it's like that’s even worse because now it's, ‘It's still a no.’”

Lionel added, "Giving them hope, knowing it's hopeless is very difficult."

The former "American Idol" winner is hoping that her past is going to help her as a judge. She said, "It's part of me, that's part of my history so hopefully I've learned a lot from my experience on the show and everything that happened afterwards so hopefully I can just bring that into my advice for the people that are standing in front of us."

Luke and Lionel also dished on the process of building the talent throughout the auditions and the rhythm and rapport among the judges. Luke said, "Day one, we're building the show, we're building the talent and then as we get into later rounds of the auditions, then we can start going, 'Oh, well these two contestants are kind of the same and they're going to compete,' but right now we're... laying the foundation of of who's going to be in the the country categories or who's going to be in the rock, pop, or R&B categories."

Lionel noted that they are looking for a "diamond in the rough."