Entertainment Ireland

Simon Cowell to 'Quit' American Idol... Sort Of...

The following comes from his possibly attention-starved brother, Tony, who just so happens to have a radio show (called the Fame Game...) to keep his comparably meagre ego afloat. He "let slip" this nugget on his most recent podcast.

"Simon is preparing for a new season of 'Idol,' or should I say his last season of 'Idol' - OK, I will say it, because it is. As I sit here in the sunny Caribbean with my family (thanks to Simon), a press statement is being prepared which will confirm what everyone expected - Simon will leave 'Idol' at the end of 2010 to concentrate on bringing the American version of 'The X Factor' to US TV in 2011."

It was one thing to ask the viewing audience to swallow an American Idol without Paula Abdul leaping to her feet only to wobble on them furiously while trying to dance, there's no way they'll watch it when all they've got on offer is Randy 'the Dawg' Jackson, Ellen DeGeneres and that blow in who wrote a couple of songs for Kylie Minogue. The inevitable will happen, and Idol will get canned in favour of the X Factor, which is essentially Cowell giving the owner of the Idol format, Simon Fuller, the finger... Unless Fuller has shares in X Factor also. I dunno, it's all so incestuous, the same name, the same clothes, the same hair, same small man syndrome, same dubious orange glow... The question is, who is Simon's mini me?