Simon Cowell insists he doesn’t have a "grudge" against Little Mix, but brought ‘The X Factor: The Band’ forward so the show could air ahead of theirs.
The music mogul had always planned to launch a groups-centred programme in the UK after previously doing so in the US, but admits he didn’t want the girl band – who won ‘The X Factor’ in 2011 – to get there before him with their talent show ‘The Search’, which will look for a new group.
He said: "With music, radio, TV – sometimes you just have to do something quick.
"The truth is I have a group show which I launched in America, I think four or five years ago.
"We’ve always decided to do a group show in the UK so we’d agreed with ITV that we were going to do ‘X Factor Groups’ in 2020.
"So that was all fine and then we were going to do the ‘All Stars’ version this year, and then when we found out that the Little Mix show was going go out in 2020.
"I didn’t want to follow that show since we’d already planned it years ago.
"I thought, ‘Well, we’ll just bring it forward. Simple as that.’
"And it wasn’t like some grudge against Little Mix or whatever because you know I owe those girls a lot.
"Even though we gave them a launch pad, they sold a lot of records.
"I thought their idea was a great idea. Sometimes you want to be the first one to do it in a certain country."
Simon has also insisted the normal series of ‘The X Factor’ will definitely return at some point, after he gave the programme a rest this year.
Speaking on ‘Heart Breakfast’, he added: "Yeah that will come back. You can’t keep doing the same show year after year after year and we’d had this idea for a while of doing the celebrity version, which has been a lot of fun.
"I really, really have enjoyed every week of it. So I’d like to think over the next few years you can alternate the show between being a regular show, a group show, a celebrity show – like we did with ‘Champions’ with ‘BGT’, we did the ‘Champions’ show.
"So with shows like that you know you can and should change them around a bit."
Tune in to ‘Heart Breakfast’ with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden weekdays from 06:30-10:00.
Simon Cowell addresses Little Mix ‘grudge’
