14 DAY TRIAL // Cheryl Cole is off the judges panel on the US version of X Factor, which premieres on TV this September and for which auditions began some weeks ago. After she was dropped so unceremoniously the other day, the singer has fled the US and is now hiding in her home country, new reports suggest.
No one seems to know for a fact why she was fired from the show, especially since she’s always had the support of Simon Cowell, who claims to be the boss.
More importantly, no one wants to say anything officially just yet, even though word online has it that Cheryl is definitely out of the picture, having already been replaced by Pussycat Doll Nicole Schwerzinger.
The Daily Mail, for instance, claims she’s so hurt and upset that she’s decided to go into hiding until all this blows over: Cole’s last public appearance was on May 18.
At the same time, ITV bosses insist that she came back on the original version of the show, the British one, but she’s considering “turning her back” on X Factor for good because of how unpleasantly this whole situation was handled, says the tab.
In a separate article, the Mail goes to great lengths to analyze what could have gone wrong to make network bosses decide to boot Cole after only a few weeks of auditions.
Her thick Geordie accent was, of course, an issue (see the video below for a sample of it), with producers getting confirmation that American audiences couldn’t understand much of what she was saying – and even when they did get her, they still didn’t like her, claims the Mail.
“Some acts reportedly had trouble understanding anything she said. At the LA auditions she constantly had to repeat herself – and was booed on her second day after sending three acts home,” the tab writes.
“Things got worse last week in Chicago, and Cheryl had to be asked repeatedly to speak up because she had started to lose her confidence. One audience member reported that she became ‘tearful’ after being told to speak more loudly and clearly,” the Mail adds.
Simon Cowell stuck up to Cheryl until the final hour, when he too realized that she was simply not working: so, when network bosses told him that she had to go because she couldn’t bring amazing ratings for the new show, he was the first one to agree to it.
For the time being, though, there’s no official confirmation of Cole’s departure from X Factor. Because of this, there still are some who choose to believe all of the above is just a PR stunt to garner more attention for the show.