Simon Cowell is opening up about his One Direction regrets… And the boys clearly aren’t having it.
Last week, the record exec stopped by Steven Bartlett’s The Diary Of A CEO podcast, where he reflected on discovering the boys — Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, and Niall Horan — alongside his X Factor co-judges in 2010. But things quickly got accidentally (???) insulting.
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He admitted he doesn’t think the band will ever get back together, which is particularly frustrating for him because he feels he could do something with the band name… if he owned it! He dished:
“The one thing I regret is: I should have kept the name. I should have owned the name.”
Adding that the five boy band alums own the name, he revealed:
“That’s the problem. [I] could have made an animation or whatever, but when you give an artist the name, it’s not yours and that’s my only regret.”
He then spoke directly to them, adding:
“So if you’re listening, I’ll buy it back from you.”
The 64-year-old went on to add more insight into his regret:
“But that’s the only thing I do regret, because if one of the band members for whatever reason say they don’t want to tour, it can stop the others [from] touring. So if it was me who owned the name, it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Wait, so is he saying if he owned “One Direction” he could just make new content? Maybe even with new members? Replace them every few years like Menudo or something? It kiiiinda feels like he’s minimizing the value of the boys themselves over the brand, tbh…
He concluded:
“I can be very naive at times, and that was me being very, very naive. So next time, that will be part of the deal — I have to own the name. They can still make most of the money, but I need to own the name.”
Simon revealed that he’s currently on the hunt for the next boy band sensation. Watch his full interview (below):
Maybe Niall and Louis read into it the same kind of shade we did. Clearly, neither singer was pleased with his cold comments, because they’ve both unfollowed him! On BOTH Instagram and X (Twitter)!
For what it’s worth, it looks like neither Harry, Zayn, nor or Liam are currently following Simon on social media, either. (Though Zayn probably hasn’t been for YEARS! LOLz!)
Yikes!
What do you make of this situation, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments down below.
[Images via The Diary Of A CEO, Esquire, & GQ/YouTube, & Daniel Deme/WENN]