It's only been one day since Simon Cowell re-reared his famously flat-topped head to make his big $5 million "X Factor U.S." announcement, and already he's back to barb-slinging. Today, just in the course of a five-minute, technical-glitch-filled interview on the morning show "Fox & Friends," he managed to trash Christina Aguilera's failed national anthem performance at the Super Bowl, Steven Tyler's recent remarks about his attitude toward country music...and even cats, in a way. The man's a pro.
Regarding Xtina's "Star-Spangled Banner" disaster Sunday--during which she flubbed the words (note: lyrical memory loss is one of Simon's major pet peeves) and, by the accounts of the majority of the 100 million people watching, embarrassingly oversang the song--Simon had this to say: "It sounded like a hundred-thousand people in the stadium had just sat on a cat."
Oh snap! Simon really should've saved that zinger for one of his "X Factor" critiques. Although, that wasn't really fair to felines; come on, no cat sounds that bad.
And regarding Steven Tyler's recent gripe about Simon's lack of support for country singers, Simon said: "We'll send Steven a tape of an audition of a girl called Carrie Underwood, and if you play back what I said at the time, and what I continued to say, that she will be the most successful artist on 'American Idol'--and she was, Steven, a country singer!"
Simon then added, "I think [Steven] was probably told to say that," and when he later discussed the much higher age limit for "X Factor" auditioners, he said: "Steven, even you're not too old to apply."
Triple snap!
Wow. Clearly temporary retirement has not softened this bristling, bristle-headed Brit one bit. Get ready for a lot more of scowling S.Cowell when "The X Factor U.S." premieres this fall on Fox.
Are you excited for Simon to come back?
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