14 DAY TRIAL // Steve Jones, the handsome Welsh who hosted the first season of X Factor USA, is officially out of the picture. He will not be returning for the second season of the show, he just announced on his Twitter.
Speculation about whether Jones would get his contract renewed started even before the first season wrapped, with many voices online saying that he was simply not up to the challenge.
Whether this was the reason or not, we can only guess – but Steve himself broke the news on his Twitter page.
“I won’t be hosting next seasons XFactor which is a shame but I cant complain as I’ve had a great time. Good luck to everyone on the show [sic],” Steve writes.
While he makes it seem as if the departure is on excellent terms, reports online suggest something different: it would seem the show is being “exorcized” after a rather lackluster debut season.
After meeting with network executives, Simon Cowell has started to analyze all that went wrong on the first season of X Factor – and he's decided that several key players must go, Jones included.
Billboard reports that Nicole Scherzinger and Paula Abdul too have been notified that their contracts will not be renewed, which means only Cowell and L.A. Reid are still on the panel.
“Soon after [Jones was let go], Scherzinger was informed that her contract also would not be renewed. The host and judge did not receive an explanation for the decision, but a source close to the show says Cowell has decided that the show needs a bigger celebrity on the panel next season,” the music-oriented publication says.
Nicole has yet to make the rumor official. Similarly, Abdul's rep was not immediately available for comment at the time of writing.
However, one should note that Nicole must have seen this coming, since she was talking about it in a December interview.
She didn't say anything specific about quitting the show, but she did drop enough hints that she would, saying that she would be very busy with her music career.
“Next year for me, it’s about my music,” she said, as we also reported at the time.