Simon Cowell's Troubled Empire

Is Simon Cowell's empired in trouble? Richard Rushfield looks at some PR nightmares Simon has encountered over the past year in the U.K.

From the Daily Beast:

Away from the live show's klieg lights, X Factor's world also took a highly unsettling turn in October when Leona Lewis, its most celebrated star–the one true star the show has produced in its six seasons–was punched in the face at an autograph signing event by a 6'5" man who had auditioned for and been rejected by X Factor.

Meanwhile with all this mess swirling around, the Cowell empire took a hit where it hurt the most–on the album sales charts. For the past five years, the victory single produced by each season's X Factor champion has owned the top position on the UK's charts for the all-important Christmas sales week, an exalted spot in British tradition. In December, however, an Internet campaign sought to deprive the show of its assumed No. 1 slot, urging people to buy the metal band Rage Against the Machine's 1992 single "Killing in the Name." The campaign led to the band selling 500,000 copies of the song, soaring past X winner's Joe McElderry's rendition of "The Climb." A chastened Cowell remarked, "I now realize I've taken too much for granted… I accept there are people that don't like the X Factor."

With all the strum und drang, British critics have begun asking for the first time, the once unthinkable question about the show that for years has topped U.K. ratings: Could X Factor actually have overdone it and be on its way out

Continued in the Daily Beast