According to Deadline Hollywood, Jennifer Lopez and her manager, Benny Medina were negotiating for a 15 million dollar plus guaranteed “go” motion picture and TV pilots deal at FOX to be a judge on American Idol.
What Jennifer ended up with was a 12M deal, and an overall FOX deal with no film/tv commitments.
To complicate matters, Simon Cowell had already offered Jennifer a judge’s seat on his US X Factor. Also, Jennifer was upset that Idol brass didn’t discuss their decision to hire Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler with her.
After the FOX Powers That Be balked at her demands, Jennifer threatened to bail. That’s when those real or imaginary “Plan B” talent options, and rumors of diva behavior appeared in the media. It was left to returning executive producer Nigel Lythgoe to deny the unconfirmed reports.
One reason the announcement was delayed–Jennifer wanted it to coincide with the release of her first single with Def Jam in mid September. She previously had a deal with Sony music, but they declined to renew her contract.
In the end, with a career on the skids (Jennifer’s last movie, The Back-up Plan failed at the box office) it appears she didn’t have much leverage in the negotiations.
