Simon Cowell might have been known to be acerbic and harsh when he was a judge on  American Idol, but he also had uncanny instincts, at least when it came to Carrie Underwood. The Season 4 American Idol winner is sharing an excerpt from her journal while on American Idol, as part of her Idol to Icon series, revealing one of the predictions Cowell made that was eerily accurate.

“I, despite my mile-high hair, did a wonderful job tonight,” Underwood reads. “All the judges praised me. Simon told me that I was not just the girl to beat, but the person to beat. He then went on to make a prediction that I would not only win the AI competition, but I would sell more albums than any other American Idol has. I was really surprised. I mean, I know that Simon loves me. That was a total shocker.”

“Someone’s confident,” Underwood quips after reading the entry. She wrote the excerpt right after she sang a cover of Heart’s iconic ballad, “Alone.”

“The theme for this week where I sang ‘Alone’ was number ones, so it’s kind of like, you have your rules,” Underwood recalls. “Every week we’d get our new theme, and we’d get to work on what songs we wanted to sing. Somewhere throughout this competition, I made it to Top 12, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna go buy a laptop so I can actually do some homework.’ We got our list of years where the number one songs were.

“I remember I always loved this song,” she continues. “I always loved Heart. I feel like it was one that was kind of in my back pocket, from the beginning, even before I knew what the themes were going to be. I feel like each week, you’re always second-guessing. You’ve always got a couple of options. Once you get in and start working with the band, you might be like, ‘Oh, maybe I don’t sound as good on that one as I thought I did,’ so you switch.”

The 42-year-old remembers the conflicted feelings she had when Cowell gave her the prediction.

“At the time, I thought, ‘This is amazing,'” she remembers. “And then about five seconds later, I thought, ‘I have a target on my back now. Everyone’s gonna hate me,’ just because that’s such a bold — when he told me I was going to win the show, I remember thinking, ‘People might not like me after that.’ It made me really nervous. The compliment outweighed the fear, ’cause that was incredible. I know I slept well that night.”

Underwood is enjoying her first season as a judge on American Idol, working alongside Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie.

“it feels like home,” Underwood tells Good Morning America. “There are so many people that even still work on the show that were there when I was a contestant. And I feel like being on both sides of the coin, I’ll be able to hopefully offer some insight and help and kind of offer a different viewpoint.”

American Idol airs on Sunday and Monday nights at 8:00 PM ET on ABC.

Photo Credit: Disney / Eric McCandless