Simon Cowell is said to have offered Beyonce $500 million to star as a judge on X Factor USA for five seasons. I couldn’t imagine Bey turning down this offer, but we’ll see! More details after the jump!!
There are currently two empty seats on the judging panel after Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger were axed.
MediaTakeOut.com claims to have spoken to a very reliable insider, citing it as the same person who revealed Jennifer Lopez was joining American Idol last year.
Such a sweet deal could make Beyonce one of the highest paid entertainers in the industry – although the $500m figure being touted by the website does seem somewhat inflated, even for a star as big as her.
Beyonce – who gave birth to baby Blue Ivy last month – appeared as a guest singer and mentor on the British X Factor back in 2008 where she duetted with Alexandra Burke – who went on to win the show that year.
Her former Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland was a judge on last year’s UK show.
MediaTakeOut claims Simon is keen to get some star power from Beyonce in a bid to boost ratings on the U.S. version.
When the show was launched last year, Cowell said he wanted to get at least 20m viewers.
But while the Fox programme obtained a good audience share on its Wednesday and Thursday night slots, it only commanded around half the audience Cowell had hoped for.
The insider told MediaTakeOut.com: ‘[Cowell] wants a big name female star on the panel.
‘Mariah [Carey] is good, but she’s not that hot today. He wants Beyonce because that would immediately give him the bounce needed to beat American Idol.’
If Beyonce accepted it would make her and husband Jay-Z worth well over $1billion combined.
The website reports another source close to Beyonce remained ‘tight-lipped’ but said to expect a ‘major’ career announcement from the star in the next month or so.
A spokeswoman for Cowell declined to comment on speculation about the new judging line-up for X Factor USA.
LA Reid is set to return to the judging panel in the upcoming season.
