The object of this competition is not to be mean to the losers but to find a winner. The process makes you mean because you get frustrated. Kids turn up unrehearsed, wearing the wrong clothes, singing out of tune and you can either say, "Good job" and patronize them or tell them the truth, and sometimes the truth is perceived as mean.

You sounded like Dolly parton on helium." (After kristy lee cook of season 7 on american idol,sang her country rendition of the Beatles'"Eight Days A Week.)

My own saying is: 'Create the hype, but don't ever believe it.'

My advice would be if you want to pursue a career in the music business, don't.

I didn't realise how important stupid people are in your life, because you ask yourself, what made stupid people so stupid? What made them the way they are?

For the music business, social networking is brilliant. Just when you think it's doom and gloom and you have to spend millions of pounds on marketing and this and that, you have this amazing thing now called fan power. The whole world is linked through a laptop. It's amazing. And it's free. I love it. It's absolutely brilliant.

I didn't have any qualifications when I left school - I had three O-levels.