They understand what their market is and who they should be selling records to, and most importantly, they know the kind of artist that they want to be, but they have to do it themselves. You don't want a 13-year-old singing some awful song from a musical.

That was extraordinary. Unfortunately, extraordinarily bad.

Harshness to me is giving somebody false hopes and not following through. That's harsh. Telling some guy or some girl who've got zero talent that they have zero talent actually is a kindness.

I do a couple of hundred press-ups a day but I haven't been to a gym in years.

I grew up when the whole Motown thing was huge. The charts in those days were dominated by groups more than solo artists at one point.

I was slightly cynical of the American mentality before I came over here, but now I preach it. Here, no one's going to tear you down if you buy yourself a $300,000 car. They're likely to say: "Well, you probably worked hard for it. Good luck to you."

I love producing shows. And so when you're on a show where other people are making decisions you don't necessarily agree with it, after a while you start to feel like a passenger.