Simon Cowell has rubbished claims that he will be sacking Dannii Minogue and replacing her with a younger man.

MSN quote Simon as saying:

“No, I am not going to replace her with a guy, no. As far as I am concerned I think everyone is coming back you know.”

However Simon did admit that there is a fair bit of tension between the two female judges, Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole.

“I don’t think they’re gonna be going out for dinner in a hurry, but it doesn’t matter, you know, they’re there to do a job, they are very competitive with each other and I like that,” he said.

And The Xtra Factor presenter Holly Willoughby will also be returning next year, according to Simon.

“She phoned me up actually and said ‘I’ve got some fantastic news’ and I thought it was about me and she said ‘I’m pregnant’ – great. The first thing I asked was when is the baby due? Can you come back next year? May I think it’s due, she’ll definitely come back next year so we’re all happy,” he said.