Simon Cowell is on a one-man mission to take on the mighty BBC after admitting that he 'stole' Alesha Dixon from the Beeb's Strictly judging panel for a seat on Britain's Got Talent as revenge for the BBC launching new singing show, The Voice.
Speaking at the press launch for the new series of Britain's Got Talent, Simon also revealed that he had already tried - and failed - to woo Alesha over to ITV as a judge on The X Factor - a role that eventually went to Tulisa Contostavlos.
"I had actually approached Alesha to join X Factor for some time and couldn't quite get past the finishing posts," he said. "So once we decided we were going to make it four people on the panel I thought I'd love Alesha to join the show having met her through the talks on X Factor.
"And then part of me thought to myself that there's so much rivalry between Strictly and X Factor and all the messing around with the schedule, The Voice was 100% intended to be a competing show to The X Factor so I thought 'great, we'll nick Alesha'"
He then went on to question the Beeb's decision to launch another singing show, describing it as 'silly rivalry'.
"Of course they're in the business of doing it [creating talent shows] but when you get to the point with your shows and you mess around with the schedules and it affects the viewers - that to me is silly rivalry," he said.
"Of course I love competition but if you ask the BBC why do we need another singing talent show I'd query whether you do or not. And in my opinion they don't like the fact that The X Factor is successful, they have every right to compete with us and I have every right to arm ourselves so we're in a good place to be."
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