Simon Cowell's new Netflix series is 'all genuine'
Simon Cowell is adamant his new Netflix band search series Simon Cowell: The Next Act is "all genuine" after being accused of staging the show to launch his new boyband December 10.
Simon Cowell is adamant his new Netflix series is "all genuine" after being accused of staging the show to launch his new boyband.
The X Factor boss has returned to the small screen with a new band search show called Simon Cowell: The Next Act which follows him as he puts together a new pop group and features auditions with hopeful singers. The show led to the formation of new boyband December 10 but Cowell has since been accused of manipulating the series as a vehicle to launch the group.
During an appearance on The Rest is Entertainment podcast, host Richard Osman told Cowell: "What I thought I was going to watch was something with a bit more authenticity if that makes sense.
"You’re so brilliant at controlling narrative and understanding what people want and understanding how to give it to them.
"I wondered if you exec-ing that show meant that we missed out on some genuine authenticity, as I felt a number of times where you were saying: 'Oh this is a big problem, oh I don’t know what’s gonna happen here’ and I though: 'I think you do know what’s going to happen here'."
Cowell responded by insisting the show is authentic, saying: "No, Richard ... pinky promise I didn’t. Absolutely didn’t. I was in a bit of a bubble, I had a gut feeling that we had to check the numbers.
"I promise you it was all genuine, what you see is what happened. And there weren’t any second takes."
The podcast's co-host Marina Hyde asked Cowell why "bad" auditions were included in the series, saying: "But then why did we see some rather unfortunate less talented people?
"Much in the way we always used to, in that sort of slight X Factor theatre of cruelty way, where we just laugh at them and you get to be rude to them.
"By the time of the edit, perhaps you didn’t have to show the unfortunate untalented ones at all."
Cowell replied by insisting the series is more realistic by the inclusion of all sorts of different auditions.
He explained: "That is the reality with auditions, I’ve always gone with about half a percent of the people you see are gonna be good.
"So there were some not so good people. So I guess it was a decision to show the people that turned up and some of them weren’t very good."
