This evening on Live From Studio Five, music mogul and ex-Pop Idol judge, Pete Waterman, held nothing back when commenting on Simon Cowell’s ruthlessness following the shock decision to go to deadlock on Sunday’s X Factor, resulting in Welsh favourite, Lucie Jones being booted off the show.

Waterman said: “I think everybody’s got the show wrong, there is only one star in the show and that’s Simon Cowell. It’s the Simon Cowell show and that’s what people watch, all the rest is irrelevant.”

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Pete Waterman has hit out at ITV’s X Factor, saying that it is more about the judges than the contestants.

Writing in The Independent, Waterman described The X Factor as “the greatest television show in the world – but that’s not talent”.

He continued: “The problem for me is that kids believe that this is a talent show. It’s not. It’s a freak and geek show. It’s about ratings. That Cheryl Cole has sold more downloads as the judge than the winner of The X Factor proves that it’s a bigger promotion for the judges than it is the contestants on the show.”

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Pete Waterman has said that he would only join the X Factor judging panel if he was offered £1 million.

The former Pop Idol judge said this would be necessary as he feels that contestants are now “exploited” on TV talent competitions. I don’t know how him getting paid an extortionate amount of money would help.

Speaking to the Daily Record, Waterman explained: “I’m not going to sit in a room with a mum accusing me of being deluded because these people shouldn’t be in a room where someone is going to be brutal and tell them the truth if they don’t understand what the show is about.

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Simon Cowell is rumoured to have fallen out with pal, Pete Waterman after he took the mickey out of talent show judges on Peter Kay’s new Channel 4 comedy.

Pete told The Sun: “Simon isn’t returning my phone calls. He’s one of my best mates but has fallen out with me. He hasn’t got a sense of humour.”

Pete recently rang Simon to gloat about the Channel 4 show’s success.

He said: “I rang him so he could say, ‘Your comedy acting is genius, Pete’. But it seems he doesn’t think it’s at all funny.”

Music Moghul, Pete Waterman has claimed that he is responsible for Simon Cowell’s huge success in TV land.

Waterman told The Sun: “When we did that first day’s filming of Pop Idol, none of us could have realised that it would ever become the biggest television show on the planet.

“It was a big shambles! If I had not known Simon, I am sure it wouldn’t have worked – because I’m the one who got Simon to be Simon.

“I called him in and said, ‘Sorry Simon, if I came to you with a piece of c***, you would tell me it was a piece of c***. You’ve always got an opinion about everything and now, suddenly, you haven’t got an opinion’.” Read more & comment »