Lionel Richie Wanted As American Idol Judge And May earn More Than $25M

"American Idol" has its sights set on judge #2 and maybe it'll be Lionel Richie. Producers think Richie's legendary music career makes him a perfect pick and other factors like credibility and a knack for honing in on what will become popular. Richie is also extremely outgoing, which makes for good TV.

Now the main question is how much can producers afford to pay Richie, or for that matter any judge who fills the vacant seats? They paid a queen's ransom (just saying, but that's a huge amount) to Katy Perry, $25 Million ! which essentially blew their intended judge's budget. That 25,000,000 in dollars.

Also Ryan Seacrest is about to sign a deal to host the new version for somewhere between $10M and $15M.