Simon Cowell will not be crisscrossing the Atlantic to appear on the judging panel of both the U.S. and U.K. versions of The X Factor but will instead remain stateside during the talent show's American launch, the London Daily Mail reported today (Tuesday), citing an ITV insider. The newspaper said that Cowell was responding to family anxiety over his health. It quoted a friend as saying, "Everyone in his family is worried about his stress levels, he barely sleeps and has got a lot to juggle at the moment." The Mail said that ITV executives have been meeting with Cowell to devise some method to keep him on both shows, including offering to pay for a private jet for his flights across the Atlantic. An ITV source told the newspaper "Cowell has been trying everything to make this work. ITV had told him that he didn't need to do the auditions, just the live shows, but even so, it is just not feasible." X Factor is currently the top-rated show in the U.K.

12/04/2011