People seemed to really like Nicole on the UK X Factor last year, when for the most part she was a damp squib, offering nothing more than the usual platitudes about how cute they all were blah blah blah. In other words, she fell into the acceptable nice / docile / feminine role people wanted her to.
Now she's a bonafide judge on a different version of the show, and she's showing some teeth with other acts and judges, she's being labelled as "stupid", "crap" and "pointless" by the same people that most likely trumpeted her appearances on the UK version.
As I've said, I have no biases with Nicole - I admit I bought 'Don't Hold Your Breath, but ANYONE could have been singing that - I just dislike the way that the minute a woman starts making comments that fall out of the usual niceties, she's hounded for it. She's said nothing worse than any of the men on these shows ever say, but somehow, by possessing a uterus, she's deemed the true villain of the piece.