For the first time ever, the newest "American Idol" judge, Ellen DeGeneres, has talked about her experiences on the panel during Hollywood Week.

In an interview with FOX, Ellen's first words were of course about the infamous Simon Cowell. "I had one idea of Simon when I came in and it's changed." She continued, "He's actually meaner than I thought. It's hard to listen to him tell people things and me not to go 'You poor thing.'"

When questioned about how she's able to deliver truthful critiques, Ellen said, "I am getting good at delivering bad news myself, but I'm doing it in a tender way." She added, "It's really tough for me to walk that line and be the person that gives bad news. Because I hate hurting peoples' feelings...I had to go 'Oh, I'm not just at home looking at these people and having judgments. I'm actually having to say things to their face.' So that was hard. That's been consistently the hardest part."

"No one has given me any advice on how to do it," Ellen said when asked if any of her fellow judges gave her any advice. "I kind of just wanted to be me and I thought if I'm doing it so terribly wrong they'll come over and say 'Don't.' But, no one has done that so far. They are just letting me do what I want to do."

Ellen even talked about some of the talent that has made it through to the final cuts, "I think we have good people," Ellen said. "I'll learn. Like next year I'm going to fight harder. There were a couple people that went home last night that I wish I hadn't sent home...But, I think we have great people and I'm going to fight very very hard to keep the people that I believe in, so we have a wide variety of. Someone for everybody, I hope."

Finally, when speaking about the hard parts of the job, Ellen replied, "It's actually longer hours than I thought." She then shook her head and quickly said, "But, it's alright."

Watch the entire interview here and check out some very cool b-roll footage from the Hollywood Week photo shoot here!

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