Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly say they almost quit Britain’s Got Talent following a series of backstage disputes – among them Simon Cowell’s persistent lateness.
The presenting partners will return for the show’s nineteenth series in February, when resident judges Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and KSI scour the country for emerging talent.
But it could have been very different for the presenters had make-or-break discussions with Cowell worked against them after they grew disillusioned with their diminishing roles on the show in 2012.
Appearing on the latest instalment of Stick To Football, the pair admitted they flew to the United States for a face-to-face meeting with the head judge at a stage where ‘he was always late and going through this period where he would never turn up on time’.
‘He’s a really charming bloke with a great sense of humour,’ said McPartlin, 50. ‘He’s funny, generous and we get on well with him. We’ve always kind of had a good relationship with him because we’re quite honest with him and I think he appreciates that.
‘He asks our opinion and trusts our opinion, and I think he respects the fact that we’ve been doing it for as long as we have.’
Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly say they almost quit Britain’s Got Talent following a series of backstage disputes – among them Simon Cowell’s persistent lateness
The presenting partners will return for the show’s nineteenth series in February, when resident judges Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and KSI scour the country for emerging talent
Donnelly, 50, added: ‘We’ve been annoyed at him a few times over the years. We went to LA to see him to tell him we were going to leave Britain’s Got Talent because we weren’t having a very nice time.
‘We were in the show less and less, it’s a taking up a lot of our time, we’re not really in the show, we might as well leave and put our energies elsewhere.
‘He went, “Oh well, no you can’t leave and I’ll turn up on time, and we’ll make sure that you’re featured more and that you’ll have more fun with it.”
‘So we sat there having lunch and he went, “I can’t believe you were thinking of leaving,” and he leaned over in the restaurant in the middle of LA and started tickling me going, “You will never leave me.”‘
The presenting duo previously touched on their meeting with Cowell in 2020 autobiography, Once Upon A Tyne.
‘We let him have it with both barrels,’ McPartlin recalls. ‘We told him everything – that we weren’t being used, that we could be doing other stuff, that maybe someone else should take over.
‘To be fair to Simon, he sat there, took it all and listened intently for four, maybe five cigarettes.’
Donnelly added: ‘He made a promise to us, that things would change and that we’d never feel like that again.
Appearing on the latest instalment of Stick To Football, the pair admitted they once flew to the United States for a face-to-face meeting with the head judge after growing disillusioned
McPartlin revealed they were meeting Cowell at a stage where ‘he was always late and going through this period where he would never turn up on time’
‘He desperately wanted us to stay and we told him we’d do the next series and see how it went – and, to be fair to him, he was as good as his word, things did change.’
McPartlin recently admitted he is the ‘happiest he has ever been’ after going sober following his ‘tough’ drink-driving ordeal in 2018.
The TV presenter’s career appeared to be in tatters when he was arrested for drink-driving close to his London home.
He was later handed a record £86,000 fine – thought to be the highest fine ever handed out by a British court for the offence.
The father-of-one, who welcomed his first child with wife Anne-Marie in 2024, told The Times: ‘Turning 50 for me was great because my early forties was a really tough time. These last few years, it’s the happiest I’ve been in a long, long time.
‘What changes as you get older, especially being sober as well, for me, is the purpose.’
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