[Red Moon]

Disco 'disaster' enrages Cowell

SIMON Cowell stormed off the X Factor set after branding the 70s disco show an “absolute disaster”.

The fed-up judge got into a strop before ITV2’s Xtra Factor — after seeing Saturday night’s lacklustre performances.

And he has scrapped next week’s planned theme of a Motown show. He later revealed: “I wasn’t in a great mood and I’ll tell you why.

“Disco week has been an absolute disaster. The contestants are better than what I saw. And my frustration was that nobody, including my own acts, performed their best this week.

“Everyone let me down. I’ve seen better performances.”

Louis Walsh defended the contestants saying “they all worked so hard”. But Cowell replied: “I’m not going to patronise them. None of those performances would work outside of this competition.”

Sharon Osbourne — who now has NO contestants left in the ITV show after Alisha Bennett lost in the showdown with Hope — weighed in, saying: “When you do something like disco, it always ends up camp and a bit karaoke.”

Cowell and Sharon had a furious row on Saturday’s show about the dire performance of the rollerskaters in Alisha’s routine.

Simon sniped: “It would help if you got people on rollerskates who could skate — they’re being dragged around by the dancers. There was one point where they were all falling over you and then you sang out of tune. Sharon, it’s your responsibility to stop things like that.”

But fiery Sharon hit back, saying she didn’t pick the dancers — Simon did. She added: “You hire, you fire.” But Cowell insisted: “You could have stopped it.”


Cowell then went backstage and BANNED the rollerskaters from performing a second time when Alisha was in the sing-off.

Meanwhile, Welsh weirdo Rhydian Roberts was dressed as a Navy captain — with a troup of hunky male dancers behind him as he performed a camp version of Go West.

And Cowell took the blame for Same Difference’s lacklustre performance — after changing their song from It Feels Like I’m In Love to Blame It On The Boogie just hours before the live show. After the dismal performances, Cowell fled.

Louis claimed he was “doing his hair” while Dannii Minogue put his disappearance down to him “crying”.

Last night Cowell confirmed: “We are changing Motown week to love songs. We would have had two old themes in two weeks and by doing love songs, it means the finalists can give modern performances. The trouble with Motown is it’s so narrow in your choice.

“We’ve got to give them a theme where every one of them can show the best of their capabilities. I think there are two or three in the competition who could sell a lot of records.”

Source: The Sun