Simon Cowell: Why Cheryl Cole Was Fired From 'X Factor'

Simon Cowell and Cheryl Cole

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Simon Cowell has finally explained why Cheryl Cole was dropped from the American version of The X Factor despite being announced as a judge earlier this year. "After two cities, I offered [Cheryl] the job, which initially she accepted," Cowell told Radar. "And then unfortunately when it went public, the negotiations fell apart, so I thought she would be more comfortable doing the U.K. show than the American show. For certain reasons, [she] decided not to [come back to the U.K.] and that's why it ended up the way it is."

5 Things You Didn't Know About Cheryl Cole

Cole, who is a successful pop star in Britain as a solo act and as a member of the group Girls Aloud, ended up getting ousted from the panel of judged for the U.S. X Factor in favor of Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger,  who was originally tapped as a host for the show. "I am sorry for the way it worked out as we were incredibly close," Cowell says of Cole. "She is still grumpy with me."

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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