American Idol is almost at its end. Recently, Paula Abdul spoke with Entertainment Weekly about her time on the long-running FOX singing series.

Abdul left the show after season eight in 2009.

In the interview, Abdul revealed she quite the show about eight times:

A few years ago, this man came up to me and introduced himself and said, “I was your sound guy on your first day at work at American Idol.“ And I said, “Oh wow. I feel bad, I must have quit a few times.” And he said “Eight. You quit eight times.”

I felt terrible for those kids. I would try to maintain composure in the midst of absurdity and they were completely delusional, like brilliantly delusional. But there was never a shortage of really incredible voices and raw talent. We were always able to find it, and that’s what was so exciting.”

She added that one of her most challenging moments on the show was something Simon said to her:

Well, there was one thing that Simon told me. He said, “Being you is overrated.” I couldn’t even react. He said, “You can’t care as much as you do.” And I said, “I can’t not care as much as I do. I am who I am.” It’s true. If I could tune down that receptor of feeling energy and wanting to help and wanting to really, really want [contestants] to leave that stage a better version of themselves each time, it would have been a little easier for me. But that’s who I am. I cared. Because I was the artist fighting for the artist. It meant something. At the end of the day, I wanted them to leave the stage bigger and better and with more grace and dignity and elegance than they approached it the first time. I think that it would have been easier if I had grown up with brothers, because being the only girl was just crazy. It’s live reality television, but you can forget that you’re living everything live in the moment. It’s not staged, it’s not planned, except when they went out of their way to tease me and cause trouble for me. [Laughs] That was planned. They had fun with me. They had lots of fun at my expense.”

Abdul also mentioned the three original judges—her, Randy Jackson, and Simon Cowell—may reunite for the show’s finale next week:

I know they’re trying to figure out what the three of us will do. I’m sure we’ll do something that will be trouble-making.”

Earlier, we reported previous winners Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood will perform at the series finale.

American Idol‘s three-night series finale begins April 5th at 8 p.m.

What do you think? Are you a fan of American Idol? Have you missed Paula as a judge? Will you watch the finale?