He's Baaack! Simon Cowell is the New Judge on 'America's Got Talent'

With everyone feeling all nostalgic about the forthcoming final season of American Idol, it only seems right that the man who put that show on the map, Simon Cowell, is returning to the U.S. airwaves. But Simon won’t be sitting behind the Idol judges’ table next year. Instead, NBC just announced that he will be joining the America’s Got Talent panel in 2016, replacing departing judge Howard Stern.

The news follows a very public, and seemingly now patched-up, feud earlier this year between Stern and Cowell, during which Stern ranted on his SiriusXM show about Cowell supposedly angling for his AGT job. Despite rumors that NBC initially rebuffed Cowell, it looks like he finally got his way.

“I am really thrilled to be joining America’s Got Talent next season,” Cowell said in a statement Thursday. “What I love about this show is that it’s open to absolutely anyone. America has some fantastic talent just waiting to be discovered, and I would like that talent to come to our show, including any dogs who can sing!”

Dogs who can sing, eh? Perhaps Cowell can audition for his own show:

All kidding aside, while Cowell’s most recent appearance on American television (not counting cable network AXS’s Stateside syndication of The X Factor U.K.), on Fox’s The X Factor USA, was a misfire, it’ll be nice to see Simon, his tight T-shirts, and his witty one-liners on one of the major four networks again. Keep in mind, Cowell actually created the Got Talent format in 2006, and his Syco label signed the franchise’s biggest recording star, Britain’s Got Talent’s Susan Boyle. He’s also been a regular BGT judge for years. So he certainly knows how to do the job.

Welcome back, Simon. Let’s just hope this doesn’t happen to you again on the American airwaves:

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