Simon Cowell says The X Factor's disclosure of the entire home-viewer voting results will not necessarily become a new regular practice.
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"This is something we're going to consider week on week, whether we do it or not. We can always bring it back in. But I think certainly this is the right thing to do this week, because now we know where we stand," Cowell told Entertainment Weekly backstage after last night's broadcast.
"I suggested [revealing the vote order] about three or four weeks ago. [It] is the one thing everyone wants to know, including me, every week: Who won [the vote]? I said, 'Why don't we just tell everyone, and see what happens?' At first, everyone was like, 'No, you can't do that.' I said, 'You can do it.'"
Cowell was clearly surprised about where one of his acts had landed in the order -- sixth place went to his group Emblem 3, whom he believed were frontrunners and could eventually win the entire competition. The X Factor creator and judge admitted during last night's show he was expecting to see them in the No. 1 spot.
"I think it's changed the dynamic of the show now. Particularly for me, because I thought our acts were doing much better than was revealed tonight. So we have to change a few things up now. When the UK show finished [in 2010], we published the results of the vote. I thought One Direction was winning every week. We never won a single week. Now, if I had known earlier on, I might have changed something," he explained.
Although Cowell created and produces The X Factor, he told EW he had never known the weekly vote tally of the show prior to last night.
Fellow The X Factor judge Demi Lovato was also taken aback by the results, as she thought her "Young Adults" (17-24) category -- which includes artists Cece Frey, Paige Thomas and Jennel Garcia -- would've been much higher up in the order rather than stuck in the middle of the pack. Lovato told the magazine she was a little upset because she's well aware the success of her acts' in the competition reflects on her.
"This is my first time mentoring. I don't know exactly what I'm doing," Lovato said.
"I do think I need to think about what Simon said and take it into consideration. Obviously what I'm doing isn't working, and it's still an opportunity for me. Maybe we just have to consider some different options and re-evaluate what we've put out on stage and maybe take it down a notch."
In addition, Cowell told EW it was his idea to bring judge Britney Spears' contestant Diamond White back after she had been eliminated from her "Teens" category in the competition, because she had actually executed a better performance than fellow contestant Arin Ray when they were both forced to "sing for survival."
"Being a producer, sometimes you get to change the rules," he explained.
"There was just an angelic appeal about her," Spears added. "There's something, a je ne sais quoi thing that I can't explain. When we had to vote her off the show, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I'm glad we got her back."
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
