It's in a big spread in the Daily Express today. Verity said that she had been forced out of the X Factor thanks to the feud between Louis/Sharon and Simon.
Louis Walsh has ADMITTED that he and Sharon have joined forces to ensure that none of Simon's acts win the competition.

This is outrageous! Louis Walsh and Sharon should be sacked from the programme and 2 new neutral judges brought in to replace them.

I think Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh may well regret being involved in the X factor. My estimation of the pair of them has plumetted in the last week. If anyone had told me two weeks' ago I would consider Simon Cowell the only credible judge on the show I would have said they were mad

If Sharon and Louis are in a pact together, it may well backfire on them with the public voting for Rowetta and Steve to keep them out of the bottom two and certain elimination.

On what program did he admit to this? I saw him on This Morning and he denied they had made a pact. By the way I don't believe him I'm just interested if he has really admitted it. (Not just a trashy newspaper article.)

Angie xxx

Do you not think that this is all engineered by Simon? He's a very clever guy and knows exactly how to work the public.

I did consider this, but I can't see either Louis or Sharon allowing themselves to be manipulated like that. It is also part of Simon Cowell's persona to be the "bad guy", I can't see why he would want to alter the public's perception of him that has been a major part of his success.

I've edited my initial post as it doesn't mention him saying it on television. I was posting from memory. I have the newspaper article here now and this is what Louis said:

Westlife manager Walsh agreed that he and Sharon had cooked up a plan to work against Cowell, which could change the result of the whole show.
"Myself and Sharon are going to vote off Simon's acts," admitted the 52-year-old. "We have discussed it and we are ganging up against him to make sure that Simon cannot win the show."

He also had a moan about Simon later on in the article. He was accusing Simon of being aggressive and turning into a monster as soon as the show went on air.

Sorry, but I think that he's talking rubbish!

Personally I think it's likely that Simon has purposely been winding the two of them up for weeks, and then transforming himself into the utter professional for the live shows, leaving Louis and Sharon to look like the immature and biased judges, with no agender other than 'must beat Simon at all costs'.

Yes, the 'Mr Nasty' image has been a trade mark for Simon, but people would eventually get bored of seeing the same thing time and time again. Serve it up in a shiny new package, display a caring side ie with Verity, and make the others resort to catty comments, Simon can only come out on top.

Louis and Sharon also said in a much earlier show that they would side against simon. I think it was the one where they learnt which group of people they would be mentoring.

...the only one who could fix X Factor is Simon Cowell as he owns the Production Company who make the programme. He even has control over the voting (unless it is independently monitored - we don`t know). He said this morning on GMTV that there is no way Steve or Rowetta will end up in the bottom 2 (and I believe him), so unfortunately Louis and Sharon will not get the opportunity to vote either of them off. When you own the company, you can do what the hell you like (including putting one of your contestants on ITV chat shows to gain more votes)

Surely for Louis and Sharon to vote off Simon's acts, first they have to be in the bottom 2?

Rowetta and Steve both seem popular at the moment, plus Simon is making sure they get plenty of tv coverage on ITV so I can't see it happening for the next few weeks.

They may have teamed up so far but just watch Louis, he will dump one of Sharons acts just like that.

Its rather interesting that this show has turned out to be more about the judges rather than the contestants, i almost forget about them!! I don't think simon will gbe fixing this for his benefit, because everyone knows that you get caught out doing this. And I cant imagine Sharon being paid to act aggressive towards Simon all the time n to gang up on him, Louis i can, but not Sharon. I say everyone, if they think that Rowetta and Steve have song well to definately vote for them atleast once to keep them out of the bottom 2, because we all know if one of them is in the bottom two they will get voted out!

Louis is just a toad! Ick! Horrible man! Ewww eww eww! It's really bad that he'd come out and say stuff like that! I didn't think Sharon would team up with him and do something like this but maybe I was wrong I agreed with her decision to send Verity home as opposed to 2 To Go, but d'you really think if it had been them or Rowetta she'd have sent Ro home? I hope not!

I don't care about their silly little games.......I'll be voting for who *I* think is best and won't be swayed at all......and that little toad (as Sally quite rightly put it) Louis hasn't a cat in hell's chance of winning the show.

Lets put this in perspective, Louis claims to have fixed Xfactor, Saddam claims to have had weapons of mass destruction, Tony Blair calimed to have definative proof of this, Bush claims to have invaded Iraq to stop terrorism.

Small minded people on dodgy ground lie to make themselves feel big.

For **** sake... Relax. It's all an act designed to drum up publicity. Or do people seriously believe Louis Walsh and Simon aren't good mates?

I agree. Simon and Louis have been friends for years even before they worked together with Westlife. I am suprised that people have fallen for all this rivalry nonsense.

It's all about 'ker-ching' 'Oh no Simon's acts may be in the bottom two and that horrid Sharon and Nasty Louis will send one of them home, but if you pick up the phone and make Simon even richer, that won't happen'

It's simons show. Simon came up with the whole concept and the rule for the judges to vote. His acts are overwhelmingly the worst. He's treated Louis and Sharons acts horribly with unfair comments and had goaded them with his "skills" the whole way.....for him to come up with this judges vote rule and expect them NOT to gang up on him is insane....

Besides I'd vote out simons acts before any other act on that stage as all three were terrible.

I know, it's astonishing how swept up people are.

Do you remember a few weeks ago when they were given their chosen groups?

There were video clips of them talking on the phone together.
Has everyone f**ing forgotten that?

Or did they simply not realise what was going on?

It was acting,..plain and simple.

Let's go back to those shows for a minute and think about what happened in them.
Does anyone honestly believe that while Simon is sat in his limo being driven somewhere,..there just happens to be a cameraman pointing a camera on him when he speaks on the phone to Louis or Sharon?
At that moment?..By sheer coincidence?

Still think it's real?

Then how about a cameraman filming Cowell on his mobile phone, while at the precise, exact same moment in time,..there also happens to be a cameraman pointing a camera at Louis, while Louis is speaking on the phone to Simon (Who has a cameraman filming him?

Still think it's real?

Okay,...then how about a cameraman pointing a camera at Simon Cowell, while he's simultaneously speaking to Louis, who also has a cameraman pointing a camera at him at that same precise moment, while speaking to Simon,....(Takes a breath),...... then Louis puts the phone down, hangs up on Simon, then Simon rings Sharon who just by sheer coincidence, at that same optimum moment, also happens to have her own cameraman filming her, while she speaks to Simon who still has that damn pesky cameraman still filming him?



All this was apparently appearing realtime to us.
All those reactions to what group they have been given, and Sharon being pissed off with Simon for winding her up and taking the piss, and Louis taking the mick out of Simon, ...or whatever,.....all that is presented as real.


Who actually believed those phone conversations were actually real?
And who realised they were set up for the camera?
Who believed everything we saw, happened simultaneously as we watched it?
And who realised that they probably weren't even speaking to each other at all, and that they were probably filmed at different times and edited together later for the TV show?

For that to have been a spontaneous moment, they would needed to have all three cameraman running their cameras on Simon, Louis and Sharon for the entire working day,..for that incredibly, coincidental, chance conversation.

If that didn't happen, then they either;
1) Went by a script, filmed each part seperately, and were just pretending to be speaking to each other.
Or
2) They did speak to each other,... but they had it set up so that when the director said action, all three crews had sound equipment hooked up so that they could get the correct timing and sound cues from each of the three different locations, and they went through a pre-rehearsed little sketch....Very technically difficult to get right, very tricky to do indeed.

I think the idea of the judges being rivals to each other, has been simply conceived as a device to generate drama. No other reason, nothing else.
Drama pulls in viewers.
The Drama of the judges fighting it out is a device to maximise the potential of viewing figures.
To squeeze out another few million viewers from an untapped market that they may not have had with a simple singing competition in itself.

It's a TV show, not the Mercury Music Awards.

So,....as in any good drama, good acting is required.
Last edited by Alrightmate : 02-11-2004 at 03:55

Yes they've well and truly shot themselves in the foot with this.

I dont know why you all seem so confused by all this, they are quite open about the fact that the judges are up against EACHOTHER, they arent in anyway nutral. Part of the show is for one of the judges to win, its standard tactics join forces to manouver out your strongest rival.

well if it was in the Daily Express of course it must be true!!

LMAO!!!!!!

Theres gnna b all sorts of stories throughout the duration of the competition! If a newspaper said that Louis Walsh was really a pink fluffy toad from Jupiter would you believe that?!

Well u must do - because the newspaper said it!

Who cares if its a fix or not the winner of the x factor will only be around for a year or so until the next best thing comes along!

Agree with everything you have written which makes a change for me.
So many people have been fooled by all of this rivalry. Its leading them to vote even more for their favourites in case they are knocked out of the competition. Somewhere in his luxury appartment Simon Cowell is laughing like The Joker in Batman and I wouldnt be suprised if Louis Walsh was sat right next to him planning what sort of publicity they can dream up next.Its all very entertaining but not to be taken too seriously. I do expect there is a little friendly rivalry going on each week and Simon doing his best to push his acts in the limelight ahead of the others but we are not quite in Gladiator territory yet.