After this weekend's reports that Cheryl Cole was returning to the US X Factor, Fox released an official statement last night saying that Nicole Scherzinger is officially replacing her.
Simon Cowell spoke the The Mirror, saying that delays on Cheryl's part caused confusion when he decided that she wasn't a great fit for the US panel. He still wanted her for the UK show, however:
"We were saying move to another show for even more money. There was offer of around £2.8million on the table including bonuses. So how is that sacking someone? If that’s being horrible to someone then I would be quite happy with someone doing that to me.
"She was certainly interested as we exchanged a few texts and she asked if she could have my dressing room at the studio and I said ‘of course’…
"But when the story got out, it changed everything. There was no more communication and we had set a deadline of Sunday, giving her six days to make a decision.
"That passed and we still had not heard anything. So we announced our UK judges."
She was let go from the US show on May 25th, but she was offered her job back on Saturday when she turned down a return to the UK show. Producers reportedly gave her 24 hours to decide if she wanted to return to the US programme. Simon told The Mirror:
"We had some heated conversations with her US manager Will.i.am and he inferred this wasn’t a genuine offer. They thought that if she didn’t turn up on Wednesday then we wouldn’t pay her.
"We made it clear that she was always going to be paid in full. We got to the point on Saturday when we genuinely thought she was going to accept the offer but again neither she nor they returned any calls. So we’ve announced Nicole."
Wow, sounds so complicated! We're just glad it's all finally been cleared up.
