From the old man sh**ging a MUCH younger star to sex pest who pinched my bum – new X Factor doc MUST tell sordid truth

THERE was a time in my life about 15 years ago when I lived and breathed The X Factor.

ITV’s turbocharged karaoke show was the first thing I thought about in the morning and the last thing I thought about as I fell asleep.

GettyAs the Sun’s TV editor in the late 2000s, I spoke to Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh more than I spoke to my own family[/caption]

Away from the microphones and the super trouper, there is much to tell about the showRex Features

I spoke to Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh more than my own family.

This all-consuming predicament was due to me being The Sun’s TV Editor in the late 2000s, when the talent trawl was the biggest TV show on the planet.

I still get goosebumps recalling the night Joe McElderry, a chipmunkian teenage Geordie, was crowned champion in 2009, watched at home by 20million viewers.

So my old internal telly antenna started twitching this week when I heard Sky were planning to make a documentary series about exactly what happened on The X Factor.

Reading about it in The Sun, I see it will be a “no-holds-barred look at the talent contest that gave us One Direction and Little Mix”. How exciting!

Because away from the microphones and the super troupers there is much to tell.

While the highs are mostly all out there, beamed into millions of homes every weekend from 2004 to 2018, many of the lows — the fights, the manipulation, the affairs, the drug-taking and the bullying — remain buried.

Any warts-and-all story of The X Factor will need to dig them up if it is to paint a truthful ­picture of what is certainly one of the most controversial TV shows of all time. And there is a lot to unearth.

X Factor spewed out more gossip than a town crier on speed.
Attending the live shows in Wembley, as I did most weekends, the place was abuzz with rumours about who had done or said what to whom, all of which I would take back to the office to try to get in the paper

Many of the wild tales we were able to publish, helped by wily operator Cowell’s belief that press coverage — good or bad — was key to making the show a success.

I’m sure you remember many of the big stories.

One belter being the revelation that the 81-year-old grandmother of 2010’s 24-year-old wannabe Katie Waissel was a £250-an-hour HOOKER.

It was a “f*** me, Doris” story with Big Ben’s bell on.

But despite all the mayhem, Cowell and his X Factor gatekeepers had a limit to what they were prepared to let out into the public domain, and they did a bloody good job of keeping some stories out.

There were some cracking yarns in the years I covered it that I, frustratingly, never managed to get away.

Like the older contestant who was shagging a much younger one.

Control freak

The butter-wouldn’t-melt act who spent their evenings holed up in a serviced apartment in a haze of marijuana smoke.

The frequently coked-up staffer with a filthy mouth. The married one who loved to try it on with the pretty girls.

The mouthy judge who hated one of his fellow judges and slagged him off at every opportunity.

Cowell’s creepy PR flunkie who negatively briefed about pretty much everyone — and would lie to your face (that was the late paedophile and rapist Max ­Clifford, an inveterate sex pest who once repeatedly pinched my backside at an X Factor final).

And the list goes on.

So will this exhaustive three-parter really get to the truth?

The fights, the manipulation, the affairs, the drug-taking and the bullying on X Factor remain buriedRex

One particular belter being the revelation that the 81-year-old grandmother of 2010’s 24-year-old wannabe Katie Waissel was a £250-an-hour HOOKERRex

Key to this could be down to what role Cowell will play in proceedings.

He is reportedly being “lined up” to appear. But what arrangement will this famous control freak strike with the Sky TV producers?

Cowell may no longer be telly’s top dog but he remains one of its ­master manipulators. Will he insist that some stories are NOT included — perhaps those that don’t show him in his best light — in order to guarantee his input?

Will he restrict access to his friends and colleagues, as he did when author Tom Bower wrote that bombshell biography about him? We shall see. But I hope not.

It will be a shame if this “no-holds-barred” ­version of events just ends up being what Simon says.

Victoria’s fashion twaddle will wear thin

Victoria Beckham’s documentary seems to be more about the pitfalls of her career in the rag tradeNetflix

MEANWHILE, I’m not holding out much hope for Victoria Beckham’s much-hyped Netflix documentary series.

Judging by the trailer, it looks to be less about larks with the Spice Girls or why her eldest son has mysteriously flounced off, and more about the pitfalls of her career in the rag trade.

Posh seems like a decent lass, and I enjoyed her self-deprecating turn in her husband’s documentary. But I’m not sure I can face three hours of fashion-industry twaddle.

Let’s hope she’s holding back all the good stuff to, ahem, spice things up when it launches next month.

I HAVE taken the plunge and got myself a budget robot lawnmower from Tesco for my (minuscule) lawn.

I figured it was worth it for all the time I’d save not doing it myself.

Turns out I needed that extra space in my diary to clear out all the cat s**t in the house, deposited by a nervous moggy now too terrified to visit his usual lav in the garden.

NASTY WORLD OF TV

APJimmy Kimmel Live! was pulled by ABC from its nightly lineup over the host’s Charlie Kirk comments[/caption]

WHATEVER you think of US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s defenestration, it’s hard to feel too sorry for the bloke.

He was paid millions each year for just over two decades to say pretty much anything he wanted until his owners, Disney, decided his time was up.

And while he may be “f***ing livid” about the decision, he can hardly complain about anyone else celebrating his demise.

He gleefully whooped when any TV host he didn’t like got kicked off their show.

What a bitchy little world late-night American “comedy” is, eh?

LEA & Perrins’ declaration that we’ve been putting Worcestershire sauce on our cheese on toast wrong sounds a bit, er, fishy.

The legendary anchovy-laced liquor is, according to the 188-year-old firm, meant to be splashed on to the bread, not the cheese.

Well I tried it and ended up with a few random brown blots that gave no real cover and resulted in me having to use – you guessed it – more sauce.

So no, the correct way is as I have always done it and that is to splash a bit on top of the cheese post-grill, then quickly smooth it all overwith the back of a teaspoon.

Try it and thank me later.

Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]