Simon Cowell addresses Sharon Osbourne’s feud with Amanda Holden

Britain's Got Talent head judge Simon Cowell has confirmed that he is still friends with Sharon Osbourne, after she ignited a feud with his co-judge, TV personality Amanda Holden.

Earlier this month, Osbourne reacted to a Daily Mail interview in which Holden appeared to reference her remarks on Celebrity Big Brother, about how Cowell is someone who “doesn’t know how to keep friends”.

Osbourne appeared on the ITV reality show alongside her former The X Factor co-judge Louis Walsh when it was rebooted this year.

Holden, 53, who returned to the judging panel of Britain’s Got Talent as it made its comeback on Saturday evening (20 April), was quoted as saying that she “hated seeing certain people in a reality show dissing Simon”. She also claimed that he helped their careers.

Osbourne then wrote a withering response to this, in which she rejected Holden’s claim that Cowell helped her career and pointed out that she was known as a successful music manager long before she appeared on The X Factor.

“If you put Sharon and Louis in the house, that's what you pay them for, they're going to be controversial,” Cowell told The Daily Mirror. “I still consider Sharon and Louis really good friends, we could pick up the phone to each other tomorrow.

“I think that's probably one of the things they're upset about, because they can never get hold of me.”

He continued: “Amanda is a great friend, but I really do believe Sharon and Louis are great friends as well. I don't have a phone but from what I heard, what they said about me was actually quite funny.

“And I probably will phone them both in the next week or so because I haven't spoken to them for a while and it sounds like I should do.”

Holden said watching Celebrity Big Brother was like a “pantomime” and said she disliked seeing people “dissing” Cowell: “He’s the person who’s given them all the chances, given them a lot of money and a lifestyle they probably wouldn’t have had,” she said.

“It’s bitter and pathetic. It was like Cinderella with her two sisters in the background, just stabby, stabby, stabby.”

In her response to Holden, Osbourne said that the reality star seemed unaware of her “history in the music industry, my achievements, the artists I have worked with, the shows that I've produced, and my global celebrity”.

The former manager of The Smashing Pumpkins and Motorhead, who is also the longtime manager of her husband, Ozzy Osbourne, added that “unlike you, the brand of Sharon Osbourne is known worldwide” and she has been “blessed with an amazing lifestyle throughout my entire life”.

“Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed doing them at the time as they were great fun,” she said of The X Factor. “Yes, Simon paid me very well. Probably more than what you’re receiving today, but all of that my darling went on a few handbags.”

Osbourne added that in case Holden was “living under a rock”, she is married to Ozzy, “a music icon who has sold 170 albums, won five Grammy Awards and is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee”.

“We have been married 42 years and we had a fantastic lifestyle before I ever heard of Simon Cowell,” she said.

Cowell also revealed to the Daily Mirror that he is working on a second TV talent show, which he says he hopes will involve former co-star Cheryl, with whom he was reunited during Ant And Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.

“Cheryl was brilliant on the show, great to work with, really good fun, and there might be something coming up where we might be working together, funnily enough,” he said.

“I can't tell you much at the moment. I don't think it will be on a streaming service, this one, and it won't be X Factor. But it will be TV because Cheryl is great on TV. She's fantastic.”

Additional reporting by Press Association