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After making her name on Simon Cowell’s show nearly 20 years ago, Jennifer Hudson had the notorious judge of all judges guest star on the first taping of her new talk show, The Jennifer Hudson Show, where they reflected on the night she was eliminated from American Idol.

Cowell dished on working with Hudson back in the singing competition show’s third season, telling the host that the show was popular because of people like her.

“It was the combination of talent, determination, and real personality. And even though we had that kind of banter, you and I, it was always that,” he said. “I always knew how determined you were and you were funny and you took it with grace because you kind of got it.”

Cowell mentioned that he “will never forget” the night Hudson was infamously eliminated in seventh place.

“I was thinking, ‘Who chose stupid Barry Manilow week?'” Cowell quipped. “Wasn’t me.”

He admitted, “I remember thinking, ‘This is not a great song,'” referring to her performance of Manilow’s “Weekend in New England,” before adding, “It wasn’t your fault. And then of course, what happened, happened.”

Cowell then, as Hudson joked, “flipped the script” on her, and asked if she would choose a different song if she could go back. While she admitted she wouldn’t have changed that song (but would have changed others), she said she was OK with being eliminated after getting the opportunity to display who she was as an artist.

“Once I was I was like, ‘You know what? You’re walking away with your talent, you’re walking away with your gift. This competition may be over but your passion isn’t, your love and your drive isn’t,'” she said. “Too often people give up and think that’s the end of the road and I said, ‘No, I’ll be back. And I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but I will sing my way to it.'”

And that she did. Only two years later, she scored a role in the film adaptation of Dreamgirls, where she received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Hudson also went on to become the youngest woman and second African American woman to rake in the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).