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Simon Cowell declares war on Little Mix (apparently)

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 5 November 2019

Simon Cowell has DECLARED WAR on Little Mix. War! Actual war. Well, TV war. Which is almost worse. He’s messing them right up by launching a new TV show that’s sort of like theirs. To do that he’s cancelled plans for the next series of ‘X Factor’ to be an ‘all-star’ version featuring former winners you’d forgotten about. Instead, starting next month on ITV will be ‘X Factor The Band’, a show that will search for a new girl group and boy band.

This is a DEVASTATING BLOW for Little Mix, who recently announced plans to front new BBC One show ‘Little Mix The Search’. On that programme, a load of new pop groups will be formed, who will then fight it out to win the top prize of supporting Little Mix on tour in 2020. Set to air early next year, the show is the first project from the new TV division of Little Mix’s management company Modest, which used to collaborate closely with Cowell when it had the deal to manage ‘X Factor’ finalists and winners.

Cowell is apparently BRINGING OUT THE BIG GUNS on his latest ‘X’ venture because he’s got a beef with Modest and Little Mix, after they fell out for some reason or other last year. A falling out that apparently happened after Modest came to him and asked him to co-produce the new Little Mix telly programme. Or so he says.

Anyway, he’s now going to DESTROY the Little Mix show with his own ‘X Factor’ pop group search. And he’s doing it because he reckons they thought they were going to do the same to him by entering the talent show market and going up against an ‘X-Factor’ franchise that feels like it’s very much on the wane.

“This is what really happened”, he tells The Sun, so you know what he says next is going to be 100% accurate. “I was approached to co-produce that show last year by Little Mix’s management. I told them the problem was we have a CONFLICT of interest because we are launching ‘X Factor: The Band’ in 2020”.

“We were told their show was going to launch in 2021”, he goes on. “Then we had the fall out and we find out Little Mix were bringing their show forward. Was that intentional because we are doing our show? I have no idea. But regardless, it was too much fun not to do [our show] this year. I would rather it was us doing it first. It 100% makes it more exciting there being a BATTLE”.

Yeah, so Cowell is excited about the LOOMING SHOWDOWN. Or at least, he’s excited about all the press coverage that it might generate, ensuring the shows are super hyped to a public who are possibly somewhat tired about the same old talent show telly formats.

And the hype machine probably needs some extra FIRE POWER. After all, talent shows that create pop groups are hardly new. I mean, there was the Girls Aloud creating ‘Popstars’. And then that show that gave us One Direction, JLS and, erm, Little Mix. What was that called again? Oh yes, ‘X Factor’.

The BBC and ITV going HEAD-TO-HEAD with crappy talent show formats is hardly new either. So, basically, the real story here is “more of the same from the slowly dying old school telly channels, thank fuck for the glory that is Netflix”. But throw in a little “Cowell goes to battle with his former friends Little Mix” and maybe that’ll pull in a few million viewers for each show.

While we wait to see if that COMBAT STRATEGY works, let’s just spend a minute or so thinking about all the former ‘X Factor’ winners who thought they might have a second chance at a short-lived failed pop career via the ‘all-star’ outing of the programme.

Although the Mirror reckons that the real reason that version of the show was TORPEDOED was because Cowell couldn’t persuade enough former winners to take part. So maybe we only need to spend a few seconds thinking about them. You know, like when they won ‘X Factor’ in the first place.