Ryan Seacrest has had his share of playing ref on American Idol, especially during the good ‘ole days of Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul. But I doubt he’s ever seen or heard anything like the fight that took place between new judges Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey during auditions recently held in Charlotte.

Ryan addressed the fight on his radio show Wednesday and played the ever-so-diplomatic-host-slash-referee.

“It got heated between Nicki and Mariah,” he admitted, but added, “There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing, and that’s gonna happen, and that’s OK.”

Seacrest himself was outside of the room when the verbal fight took place, allegedly over a contestant’s abilities. The Idol host said, “These are all very different individuals with different perspective and different opinion that provide for interesting conversation and dialogue and feedback for the contestants.” Ryan added, “Each one of those members of the panel this year is an essential ingredient to the sum of the show.”

Ryan continued, “It was intense, I’ll be honest with you…And it was towards the end of the day, and there were just a few contestants to be seen…So it did get intense, and we did wrap after it.”