Auditions for the American Idol reboot are now underway, and as fans wait for updates on who will be joining Katy Perry at the judges table, we know at least one star who tried (and failed) to earn a spot. An insider tells Life & Style that Kanye West expressed interest in serving as a judge or mentor on the new season — but his outrageous demands got in the way.

Kim Kardashian “used her close relationship with [host] Ryan Seacrest to get Kanye in the door. She got him a meeting with [ABC] executives,” the source shares. But, “Kanye wouldn’t agree to do all the publicity tours required of the show. On top of that, he wanted to choose which contestants he worked with if he was a mentor. Both points met with resistance from the network.”

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As it turns out, executives had no intention of hiring Yeezy from the beginning and felt he was “the absolute wrong fit” for the show. “ABC isn’t giving him the job,” the source adds. As viewers may recall, the 40-year-old scored a golden ticket during a mock audition in 2015, but it looks like he wasn’t as lucky this time around.

Kanye has been having a bit of a rough time lately. Not only was he hospitalized in November for mental health issues, but his nemesis, Taylor Swift, dragged their long-standing feud back into the spotlight with her new single “Look What You Made Me Do.” And former BFF JAY-Z recently dissed the rapper for ranting about his family (including wife Beyoncé) at one of his concerts.

“You got hurt because this guy was talking about you on a stage. But what really hurt me, you can’t bring my kid or my wife into it,” the 47-year-old explained on the podcast, Rap Radar. “Like, Kanye is my little brother. He’s talked about me a hundred times. He even made a song called ‘Big Brother.’ We’ve gotten past bigger issues, but you brought my family into it, now it’s a problem.”

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