Steven Tyler adamantly denies being racist

Former “American Idol” jude Steven Tyler and current Idol judge Nicki Minaj got into a heated confronatation over a comment Tyler made regarding the new panel of judges. “I know that they’ve got something going on on the judges’ panel,” Tyler said, “it shouldn’t be that, it should be just the opposite. They should have something going on, which is called camaraderie. They should have something going on so thick and beautiful that they can lay it over the new talent that’s trying to birth itself.”

“These kids,” he added, referring to American idol contestants, “they just got out of a car from the Midwest somewhere and they’re in New York City, they’re scared to death. You’re not going to get the best [out of them]. … If it was Bob Dylan, Nicki Minaj would have had him sent to the cornfield,” he said.  “Whereas, if it was Bob Dylan with us, we would have brought the best of him out, as we did with Phillip Phillips. Just saying.”

Nicki Minaj responded to this statement with a furious tweet. “Steven Tyler said I would have sent Bob Dylan to a cornfield??? Steven, you haven’t seen me judge one single solitary contestant yet!” Minaj wrote, “I understand you really wanted to keep your job but take that up with the producers. I haven’t done anything to you. That’s a racist comment. You assume that I wouldn’t have liked Bob Dylan??? why? black? rapper? what?”

Tyler in turn came out right away and insisted his comments had no racist intentions. “I apologize if it was taken wrong, Nicki, but I am the farthest from [being a racist],” he told the Canadian show eTalk, “I am the last thing on this planet as far as being a racist. I don’t know where she got that out of me saying I’m not sure how she would’ve judged Bob Dylan.”