Simon Cowell denies Little Mix ‘grudge’ as he launches The X Factor: The Band

Simon Cowell has explained his reasons for launching new show The X Factor: The Band.

X Factor’s new Band spin-off was confirmed earlier this month, airing in December in place of an All Stars special.

The announcement followed former X Factor winners Little Mix – who split from Simon’s Syco record label last year – unveiling their own plans for a similar series, Little Mix: The Search, on BBC One next year.

Appearing on Heart Radio this week, Simon revealed exactly what has been going on behind the scenes.

“Sometimes you’ve just got to do something quick,” he declared. “The truth was I have a group show which I launched in America four or five years ago, we always decided to do a group show in the UK.

“We agreed with ITV we were going to do The X Factor: Groups in 2020 with All Stars this year.”

He continued: “Then we found that the Little Mix show was going to go out in 2020, I didn’t want to follow their show since we planned it years ago.

“I thought, ‘Let’s just bring it forward’. It’s as simple as that.”

Simon added: “It wasn’t some grudge against Little Mix, I owe those girls a lot. They sold a lot of records, I thought their idea was a great idea but sometimes you want to be the first one.”

The music mogul went on to say that the original X Factor would return, suggesting that the format could alternate alongside the current Celebrity series and new Band version.

Simon recently put the call out for singers to audition for X Factor: The Band, saying he hopes to find the world’s next biggest group.

Simon said in a video posted to social media: “We are going to try to find either the biggest boy group in the world, or the biggest girl group in the world.

“And you’ve got days to enter. We’ve done it before we’re gonna do it again.

“Right now K-POP you could argue, is ruling the world. Now it’s time for UK-POP.”

You can apply for the new series online here.

You can also audition with your mobile phone by sending a video of yourself singing to The X Factor’s WhatsApp number 07733 222 927