In part two of “Extra’s” exclusive interview with Simon Cowell, the “X Factor” creator told our Terri Seymour his plan of attack for competing this fall in what may be the same time slot as NBC’s “The Voice.”
Check out the interview below:
Read the rest of the details here:
http://extratv.warnerbros.com/2012/02/exclusive_simon_cowells_x_factor_ready_to_battle_the_voice.php
Early salary figures from Simon Cowell’s “American Idol” contract negotiations are leaking out and they’re eye-popping.
Cowell, who reportedly made $36 million last year for judging the hit competition show, has been offered three or four times that amount — between $100 million and $144 million per year — by co-producers Fox and 19 Entertainment to stick with “Idol” when his contract expires next May, according to The Guardian, a London newpaper.
Fox declined yesterday to comment about the salary negotiations.
While $36 million may seem like a lot of money for five months worth of snarky comments and eye-rolls, it’s only a fraction of the estimated $900 million that “Idol” rakes in a year. As the lynchpin of the show — without him there would be no one to hate and no dramatic tension with Paula Abdul — Cowell believes he’s due for a raise.
To get more of the pie, he’s been leaning on long-time friend and UK retail multibillionaire Sir Philip Green — who owns hot fashion franchise Top Shop — for help negotiating the terms of what would be a new “Idol” contract, reports say. Green is said to be lobbying hard for an increase in Cowell’s appearance fee on the show.
Sources close to the two friends say that this is just the first step to the creation of an international TV production, talent management and merchandising company, which would put Cowell in a position to actually make money off his ideas and the talent he discovers, not just reap a salary for having his mug on screen.
“This is about properly owning himself, Brand Cowell, everything he does, new formats and new programs, not just the ones starring him,” a source close to Green told The Guardian.
Entertainment wiz Cowell, who signed international “popera” act Il Divo, is likely to run the creative end while Green, Britain’s ninth wealthiest person, will focus on financial issues.
“Idol” is only one of Cowell’s TV contracts which are on the verge of expiring. His three-year deal, which spawned hits “Britain’s Got Talent” and “The X-Factor,” with UK’s ITV, ends this year.
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While the Adam Lambert-Kris Allen drama played out onstage during American Idol’s final performance show, a scarier showdown took place after the taping.
Former Simon Cowell squeeze and Extra correspondent Terri Seymour was attacked outside the Nokia Theatre last night, apparently targeted because of her association with the Idol judge, police tell E! News.
According to a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, officers on hand for crowd control witnessed the incident, which took place around 7 p.m. As Seymour was leaving the venue, she was approached by 33-year-old Janice Thibodeaux, who asked if Seymour was Cowell’s ex-girlfriend.
After Seymour answered in the affirmative, police say Thibodeaux—who later claimed she was acting in the name of justice for one Paula Abdul—attacked Seymour, grabbing her neck and attempting to choke her.
“It was all so sudden,” Seymour told Extra. “Very scary. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”
Seymour said she had just wrapped up her coverage of Idol when Thibodeaux, a 200-pound woman, violently grabbed her from behind.
“She came over to me and said, ‘You’re that girl from TV, right?’ And I said, ‘Yeah’…The next thing I know, this woman had me in a headlock and tried to choke me.”
Officers quickly reacted, taking the woman into custody and booking her on felony battery.
“The police were fantastic,” Seymour said. “They were close by and managed to catch her.”
Thibodeaux, who claims she had a ticket to be in the audience last night but instead opted to confront Seymour over a perceived slight she felt Abdul suffered at the hands of Cowell, is being held on $52,703 bail.
“I wasn’t cool with Simon Cowell choking Paula Abdul on the show last week and with her crying-out ‘help’ as he did so,” Thibodeaux, 33, told RadarOnline.com after she was locked up. “Nobody said anything about that so I wanted to confront him about it because that is not appropriate behavior, is it?”
So she decided to make an example out of Seymour.
“She was taking some photographs with her camera and I knew she was his girlfriend so I went up to her to tell her how I felt. We started arguing and then I put my hands around her neck and started choking her just like Simon had done with Paula.
“Then I walked away and I was tackled by the police but I don’t regret what I did because of what Simon did to Paula, nobody seemed to care about that.”
Seymour, 34, refused medical treatment after the incident.
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Simon Cowell plans on having his body cryogenically frozen after he dies. “Medical science is bound to work out a way of bringing us back to life in the next century or so, and I want to be available when they do,” the “American Idol” judge said recently. “I would be doing the nation an invaluable service.” Because what would the future be without televised singing competitions?
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When “American Idol” executive producer Ken Warwick held a conference call with the press earlier in the week, he spent much of it reiterating that he wanted Paula Abdul to stay on the show.
Turns out that reporters on the call really should have been asking not about Abdul, but about Simon Cowell.
“I’ll make a decision about (whether to stay with the show) next year,” Cowell said Dec. 17 in his own call with reporters. His inclination to make a call about staying with the show doesn’t come from personality conflict as much as it does workload, however. “This show could continue for another 10 years,” he conceded.
Cowell also backed up Warwick’s earlier statement that the show wasn’t aware of how troubled Paula Goodspeed really was. Goodspeed, of course, is the woman who auditioned for “Idol” and recently killed herself outside judge Paula Abdul’s house. Abdul has said show producers knew the woman was stalking her and let her audition anyway, but Cowell says that the producers have been portrayed unfairly.
“These guys have the utmost integrity as human beings,” Cowell said. “(The judges) wouldn’t work with (the producers) if they were the kind of people who would deliberately do something like that. We’ve taken them on their word that they didn’t know this person was as troubled as she was.”
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Both Simon Cowell and Terri Seymour’s camps have been referring to their recent split as amicable, and well, how could it not be (at least for Seymour) when a $9 million goodbye gift is involved?
Cowell is said to have given Seymour, who he dated for six years, $5 million cash and another $4.6 to buy a Beverly Hills home just before calling it quits, reports Life & Style.
“Terri phoned Simon about six weeks ago and finished it,” his rep told Life & Style, referring to the breakup. “Simon thinks the world of Terri, and that isn’t going to change. He also understands her reason for ending it.”
According to the magazine, Seymour wanted to marry and start a family, whereas Cowell recently said, “I don’t want to marry anyone, because whoever marries me will end up hating me.”
As for the pile of money Seymour reportedly received: a rep for Cowell says, “this isn’t the kind of thing he usually comments about.”
“American Idol” former executive producer Nigel Lythgoe recently revealed that Simon Cowell is earning $36 million a year from the show.
It’s not news that Cowell makes some serious coin — he’s been ranked in Forbes — but the approximately $22,000 per minute (according to Lythgoe’s calculations) that Cowell earns has fellow “Idol” judge Paula Abdul especially angry. Rumors put Abdul’s salary at closer to $5 to $8 million per season.
“Paula knew that Simon was getting paid more, but she never imagined it was this much more,” says a source who works with Abdul. “This could really put her in a bad way.”
If that sounds like it doesn’t bode well for those on the show who must deal with Abdul, well, that’s because it doesn’t.
“She has a lot of concerns with feeling appreciated,” says the source. “First, they bring in another judge (Kara DioGuardi) and now it’s ridiculously obvious that she’s getting pennies compared to Simon. If you thought she had reason to run late to the set now, imagine what the future may hold. I kind of feel for the assistants who are going to be made responsible for getting her on set on time. It’s always a challenge, but now? I don’t want to think about it.”
As for why there’s such a salary discrepancy, Lythgoe told an Australian newspaper it’s because “it is believed (Cowell) brings more to the table.”
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Simon Cowell may not be so mean after all.
The American Idol judge, 48, gave the family of a cancer-stricken 3-year-old $162,000 to pay off their mortgage, he announced on Oprah Winfrey’s Big Give show on Monday.
The family drives more than 100 miles from their Minnesota home every day so their daughter, Madelaine, can receive treatments.
“It’s a very basic story of a normal family whose daughter got very ill, and they had some financial problems which was relatively easy for me to sort out,” Cowell explained to Extra.
On the show, he told Winfrey that he “credits her” for teaching him to be a do-gooder.
Said Cowell, “I never knew that doing good could feel so good.”
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We could think of a few phrases to describe Simon Cowell – rich, charming, influential, er, nasty.
But “Peeping Tom” certainly wouldn’t have been one of them. So we were stunned when the X Factor supremo revealed to us that he has started snooping on neighbours in his spare time.
Simon installed a telescope in his kitchen after becoming obsessed with 10, Dudley Moore’s classic film comedy.
In the 1979 movie, which made Bo Derek a star, Dud uses a telescope to spy on his Beverly Hills neighbour, a porn producer who regularly hosts parties with nude girls.
Simon’s telescope is pointing out of the floor-toceiling windows of the Hollywood Hills mansion he shares with girlfriend Terri Seymour.
The lens is focused on the sprawling gardens of the mansions surrounding Si’s plush pad.
Neighbour Britney Spears is used to the attention of having a lens focused on her. But other celebs who live nearby, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, John Travolta and Christina Aguilera, may be less relaxed about it.
But before they draw the curtains in panic, the bird-watcher reckons he hasn’t been able to focus on any sordid goings on – yet. Simon told us: “I saw that Dudley Moore film and it was great.
Afterwards, I got a telescope installed in my kitchen so I can spy on people.
“I look out over the Hollywood Hills into my neighbours’ gardens. It’s an amazing view. It isn’t powerful enough to see into their homes – so you can’t see them in the shower – but you can see into their gardens.
“It’s great fun. I just like to keep an eye on what is happening.”
Well, even a multi-millionaire music mogul needs a hobby, we suppose.
Just don’t tell the LAPD…
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