Talk Radio Network-FM’s and Dial-Global’s Erich “Mancow” Muller visited with Simon Cowell, host of FOX’s new “X-Factor” and asked about the show. Cowell confirmed that the winner of X-Factor will receive a “guaranteed 5 million dollars”– not just a standard recording contract with a record label, offered by American Idol and other programs.
However, Cowell could not confirm whether Paula Abdul would be co-hosting with him on X-Factor. Mancow invited Cowell back on the show when he was ready to make the formal announcement on Abdul becoming X-Factor’s co-host, saying, “You could give me the biggest boost of my career,” to encourage Cowell to break the story live on-air during The Mancow Experience.
During the segment, Mancow asked Simon about his video audition for co-host of American Idol, which he sent to him nine years ago. Cowell said Mancow was “more interesting and more important” than him, and continued by saying, “I never work with anyone whose more interesting than me, I’m being serious. No, no, no, I’m serious, I never work with anyone better looking or more interesting – it’s in my contract. I’ll send you my contract–you have to go through a focus group, if people think you are uglier than me then you get to work on the show.”
Mancow then asked for suggestions on how to improve his video performances and celebrity status, asking Cowell, “What would you do with me…What advice can you provide?” Cowell jokingly responds, by saying, “I would start with plastic surgery…Your eyes, they look kinda shifty.”
Listen to a segment of the show here.
X-Factor begins airing in the Fall. Auditions will begin 3/27 in LA with upcoming open auditions scheduled in: Miami, Newark, Seattle, Chicago and Dallas. The X Factor’s mission is to find America’s top undiscovered singing talent.
