"At the end of the day, if you’ve decided you want to enter American Idol, you want a short circuit to be rich and famous. If that means you have to take a bit of criticism along the way - tough."

And it seems TV’s Mr Nasty thinks he’s fair on the wannabe singers.

"I don’t think I’m humiliating anybody," he argues. "Possibly, [the competitors] are humiliating themselves."

He continues: "I want to meet the parents sometimes and say ’are you aware that your son or daughter has zero talent and you’re wasting their time when they could be doing something they’re good at?’"

’X Factor meets Dallas’ in Cowell drama - Mar 19 2007
Simon Cowell is to make a TV drama about two feuding TV talent show judges.

The X Factor has had its fair share of troubles recently with Louis Walsh blaming TV’s Mr Nasty for giving him the sack.

Now Simon can put that experience to good use in ITV’s Rock Rivals, the latest show from Footballers’ Wives creators Shed Productions, which takes a fictional look behind the scenes of a blockbuster TV talent show.

The star is on board as an adviser and said: "Think X Factor meets Dallas."

The judges in Rock Rivals are a husband and wife team whose marriage falls apart and develops into War Of The Roses-style feud both on and off camera.

Simon said: "I am very excited about this show. The idea is brilliant and Shed Productions have a proven track record of making these type of shows very popular."

An ITV spokeswoman said: "The ongoing appeal for this type of talent show presents a ripe opportunity for a modern, fun drama that transports us backstage into the heady and fabulous extremes of the music business."

The series will be broadcast later this year - and plans are afoot for a US version.

I sell more than The Boss - Cowell - Mar 16 2007
X Factor supremo Simon Cowell says he is bigger than The Boss.

In an interview to be screened on CBS’s 60 Minutes programme in the US on Sunday, Cowell, who is also a judge on the American Idol series, says he is worth five times more to Sony than Bruce Springsteen.

"I sell more records than Bruce Springsteen, sure," Cowell says of the 57-year-old rocker, who signed a contract that was reported to be in the region of 100 million dollars (£50 million).

"I mean, in the last five years, I’ve probably sold over 100 million records. If (Springsteen) got 100 (million dollars), I should have got 500 (million dollars)," he says.

Cowell says he sells all those records because he has signed "the biggest artist on the planet" - Fox network’s American Idol.

"Every single ’Idol’ winner is now signed through Sony BMG," says Cowell. "And this applies to ... all the countries ... we sell Idol to, which is over 30 countries."

Albums by American Idol winners and runners-up are distributed by labels within the Sony system through a deal between Clive Davis and 19 Recordings Unlimited, the label managed by American Idol creator Simon Fuller.

Interviewer Anderson Cooper asks Cowell, 47, whether his deal with Sony is in the same neighbourhood as Springsteen’s.

"A hundred million ... that’s a great deal," Cowell says. Was he referring to himself or Springsteen?