With word that Fox’s The X-Factor was hemmoraging judges, it’s no surprise that rumors about the potential replacements would crop up. And those potential replacements were rumored to be none other than Beyoncé and Mariah Carey. However, Simon Cowell is here to ruin our fun: he confirmed that neither songstress will be joining the show.
Cowell flatly told Extra in an interview airing Feb. 8, “The budget for the show is $100 million. That would never happen,” when asked about Beyoncé’s rumored 9-figure offer. He added, “It’s absolute nonsense. No one is going to pay $100 million for someone. I genuinely haven’t had a conversation with her about it. Not at all.” But what about Mrs. Nick Cannon? Cowell shot that idea down too, professing his love for the singer before noting, “…you can’t expect someone who has just had two kids [and] has a record career to make the kind of commitment we would need on this show.”
And what about the notion that the series didn’t perform as tremendously as he’d hoped? (It would certainly support the reasoning behind not using expensive super stars like Bey and Carey.) Cowell doesn’t make excuses for the show, but instead resorts to finger-pointing. He touts his show for employing record execs instead of just successful recording artists (as The Voice does), adding, “I would ask how many records they have made, how many artists have they discovered?” Well, Mr. Cowell, aside from the fact that the X-Factor’s winner earned herself a Pepsi Super Bowl commercial as part of her grand prize, it would seem that the winners of both freshman series aren’t all that well-known. They even needed to pull in Elton John and Flavor Flav to make up for the fact that most of the 111.3 million Super Bowl viewers had no idea who Melanie Amaro is. And if we look at American Idol’s track record, in 9 years that Cowell was a judge, most of the winners have gone on to be just flashes in the pan. In other words, chill out, Simon.
Who do you think should replace Nicole Scherzinger and Paula Abdul on The X-Factor? Or are you indifferent with American Idol and The Voice to keep you busy?
Source: Extra via THR
