Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I’m not ruling out a return to X Factor but I want to be with Bear a little longer ..I love being a mother AS JUDGE
down” in the US and that she was “not right in the head”. As things got even worse, Cheryl famously texted Simon, saying: ‘F*** you, **** the orange and purple outfit. **** the big hair. **** the UK X Factor. **** you all. I hate you.”
But they had patched things up by 2014 and were reunited for another two years on the UK show.
Now, amid the luxury of Chateau Diter, in the hills outside Cannes in the South of France, any awkwardness is clearly long gone as they finish each other’s sentences. Simon says: “Genuinely, it’s fun being back together.”
And they are now both parents. Cheryl had Bear in March with Liam, 24, after splitting from husband Jeanbernard Fernandez-versini. And Simon has son Eric, age three, with partner Lauren Silverman, 40.
Simon believes Cheryl can easily balance parenthood with being back at work. He says: “I’m a dad. I do it no problem.” So, what does Cheryl think of the current judging line-up of Nicole, Sharon and Louis Walsh?
“You’ve got some people that have experienced everything in there, from being on stage to being the manager,” she says. “And then you’ve got Louis!”
Louis and Cheryl have a longrunning feud, despite him being her former Girls Aloud manager. But the animosity doesn’t appear to have put Cheryl off a potential full-time return.
But for the moment, she is relishing the lack of responsibility that comes with her short stint on the show this weekend. She says: “I was happy to do it. And it’s good for me as there is no pressure. I don’t have to choose who goes through.
“Normally, I’ll go to bed exhausted, drained and worried, feeling so bad that I have to tell them no.”
The X Factor is currently pulling in five million viewers which, while a far cry from its peak, is still impressive.
But Simon admits that Strictly Come Dancing, which has nearly double the audience, is winning the ratings war and says that he would even like to run the smash-hit BBC show himself. “I’m not angry like I used to be,” he says. “I would love to have that show [Strictly], by the way, but it does have a much older audience.
He adds: “If you try to make our show ‘old’ to compete with them, then you have got a big problem. I think you have got to hang on to what you’ve got and be thankful they are still watching.”
Surely Simon hasn’t waved the white flag in the TV ratings battle?
“You never give up but, at the same time, you have to accept it for what it is now,” he says. But he’s not fully conceding defeat just yet, as he says of X Factor’s viewing figures: “That’s still a lot of people – they’re young and they are buying records.”
The X Factor is on Saturday at 8.20pm and Sunday at 7pm on ITV1.