After the backlash over this season’s “Britain’s Got Talent,” judge Simon Cowell has come forward to admit that he has made mistakes along the way.

[sic]“If, like me, you make a living from criticising people on television, then you can’t complain when people turn the tables and criticise you. And I don’t,” writes Cowell in an open letter on UK’s Daily Mail.

Criticized for the controversy surrounding BGT runner-up Susan Boyle, and for the way things were handled with some of the children who were contestants on the show, Simon says “Sometimes you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

Setting the record straight, Cowell says, “I’m the first to hold my hands up and admit I’ve made mistakes.”

“I didn’t get into show business to make little children cry or upset a nice lady like Susan Boyle,” he continues.

Cowell addresses Boyle’s breakdown; his decision to give 10-year-old Hollie Steel a second chance after she struggled to remember the lyrics of her song and began to cry; and his “biggest regret” – making 11-year-old street dancer Aidan Davis cry by critcizing his performance in the finals.

[sic]“It was a huge, huge mistake. It almost ruined the whole evening for everybody. Looking back, I know I could have been kinder.

In the heat of the moment, I had treated him as I would an adult, forgetting that he was only an 11-year-old child with a dream.

I apologised to him afterwards, but it didn’t make me feel any better about it. Moral of the story? I don’t always get it right.”

Simon also addresses the sore losers from some of his reality shows:

“From the way some of the contestants go on, you would think they had been locked up and tortured or taken into a room to have a personal confession beaten out of them, instead of voluntarily taking part in a televised talent show.”

View Hollie Steel performance video, Aidan Davis performance video and the entire Simon Cowell open letter below.

Hollie Steel cries after forgetting her lyrics

 

View the entire Simon Cowell open letter on Daily Mail.

View Aidan Davis final performance video.

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Filed under: Celebrities, Simon Cowell