Pixie Lott guns for TV matchmaking show

Pixie Lott is impressed Cheryl Fernandez-Versini tied the knot after just a few months of dating – when marriage isn’t even on the cards for her and boyfriend of four years Oliver Cheshire.

The 23-year-old pop beauty reckons Chez Fe-Vez, 31, has her ideal picture of marriage set in her head after she got it wrong with Ashley Cole first time around.

‘Maybe she just knows that it’s right? Every situation is different for different people. Maybe she just wants to settle down and have babies,’ Lott told Guilty Pleasures.

However the Kiss The Stars singer admitted she wasn’t yet considering taking the plunge with her 26-year-old model beau but is quite a good matchmaker.

‘I set one of my best friends, Carla, up with my other friend Oss,’ she explained.

‘I had a song called Broken Arrow and Ossian is the boy in the video I do the dance partner work with. We were already friends at school but then we met up again through the video and we became good friends again.

‘Then it was Carla’s birthday so I told him to come down and they got on like a house on fire.

‘Two weeks after I was on tour and booked them both to be dancers so they were together every day on tour and now they’ve been together for four years.’

Lott, whose new single Lay Me Down is out a week on Sunday is so confident about her Cupid abilities she thinks she should be commissioned to bring love alive.

‘I should have a TV show. I could bring together on tour – it’s worked in the past. I could match-make people in the crowd,’ she laughed.

[Originally published Metro, Guilty Pleasures, Thursday 17 July 2014]

Simon Cowell: I was stupid to sack Cheryl

Simon Cowell has admitted he was ‘stupid’ for firing Cheryl Cole after grovelling for her to return to end his X Factor ratings hell.

The 54-year-old came clean over Cole’s departure from the US version of the show in 2011 in an exclusive chat with Guilty Pleasures.

‘I made too many stupid decisions and I’ll own up to it, sacking Cheryl was one of them,’ he said. ‘It was a silly decision. Of course I was wrong and I don’t mind admitting when I am wrong.

‘If I could turn the clock back, I would do it differently, if I am honest. But I can’t.

‘I realised I wanted to make the show close to where we left it. It was a fantastic year. And I had to get Cheryl back.’

The X Factor pulled in its highest ever ratings in 2010 with Cowell and Cole on the judging panel – drawing 20million viewers. Now he’s determined the next series of The X Factor will overtake BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing.

‘We’re back to get this show back to No.1. For me the ratings are important, I’m not going to lie.

‘If we are second to Strictly I am going to be disappointed,’ he admits.

But if Cole’s return doesn’t appeal to everyone, Cowell has another trump card up his sleeve – another surprise woman to spice up the line-up.

‘Louis is considering a sex change,’ he joked, adding the 61-year-old Irishman would make a good stand-in as a female judge. ‘I could see Louis in a wig,’ he said.

[Originally published Metro, Guilty Pleasures, Tuesday 11 March 2014]

Cheryl Cole: Simon begged to have me back

Cheryl Cole is taking great delight in explaining just how much begging Simon Cowell had to do to seal her return to The X Factor.

Bridges between the 30-year-old Geordie lass and her former boss seemed to have been burned for good when she was dumped from the US version of the show after just three weeks.

However, Cowell, 54, appears to have resorted to emotional blackmail to convince Chezza to come back.

‘There’s only so much begging I could take. It’s not nice to see a grown man cry,’ Cole told Guilty Pleasures at London’s glitzy Dover Street Arts Club. ‘The begging went on for a few years.’

Metro revealed back in November that the singer was handed £1.4million compensation from US X Factor bosses over her humiliating sacking back in 2011.

While the cash from her court victory may have softened the blow, the pop beauty says she is not bitter about the past.

‘I don’t hold grudges. I remember facts. And the facts I remember are I won my first two series and I had two in the final of the last series, so the rest of the stuff is irrelevant,’ she said.

And despite reports of a £1.5million deal to tempt her back for the 11th year of the British show, Chezza swears the seven figures are not her motivation.

‘I’m excited to find talent again. Actually, that’s the thing I love the most, it’s discovering the talent. I thrive off that. It just felt like the right time now,’ she said.

With two seats remaining to be filled, Cheryl has been quick to deny reports she doesn’t want another girl on board.

‘There are people I would love to join on the panel. Especially a strong woman, preferably. I’m kind of hoping I don’t have to deal with three guys otherwise I may be appearing on a Saturday night with no hair because I’ve pulled it out,’ she laughed.

[Originally published Metro, Guilty Pleasures, Tuesday 11 March 2014]