Ryan Seacrest Keeps The Original American Idol Desk In His Garage, Says It Will 'Come In Handy' The Rest Of This Season

Source: Twitter

It’s been nearly two decades since American Idol first premiered, and host Ryan Seacrest still has a huge souvenir from the inaugural season sitting in his garage. Now Seacrest’s sentimentality – or his hoarding problem – is going to come in really handy during the American Idol live shows amid the COVID-19 lockdown.

Seacrest took to Instagram on Tuesday to show his fans that he saved the original desk from the series that was once used by Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson. The media mogul explained that he has had the desk sitting in storage for more than three years, but now he will be using it to host American Idol from home.

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“Hey, guys. So we’re rehearsing for American Idol … and this desk is the original desk that Randy, Paula and Simon had,” said Seacrest. “I never thought we’d quite use it again, but it’s coming in handy for this Sunday.”

Seacrest will sit behind the silver desk with neon blue accents when the live social distancing episodes start airing this week on ABC with current hosts Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan.

In the caption of his post, Seacrest wrote that he kept the desk in case of emergency and now the time has come. He added that this season of American Idol will be “historic on so many levels,” and they will be broadcasting from 25 different locations. Those locations will be Seacrest’s home, the respective homes of the three judges, contributor Bobby Bones’ home, and the homes of the top 20 contestants.

To keep with the American Idol tradition of live shows and audience voting, the contestants will perform remotely while self-isolating and then the audience will be able to vote for their favorites starting this Sunday.

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American Idol premiered on Fox in 2002, and Seacrest revealed during an interview back in 2016 that he almost didn’t get the job. He ended up co-hosting the first season with Brian Dunkelman, but Seacrest says his first big break almost didn’t happen.

Ryan Seacrest revealed that right before he auditioned for American Idol, he also auditioned for the hosting gig on Family Feud, which is produced by the same company as the singing competition. He said he tested well for the game show hosting gig, and he had the choice to take it or wait for American Idol.

“Something in the back of my mind,” Seacrest told Harry Connick Jr. on his daytime talk show Harry. “I thought that Feud would be the big break. I was not doing big TV. I was psyched, anyways, so it turned out that I waited and Idol was the show.”

New episodes of American Idol air Sunday nights on ABC.