Why Simon Cowell is Quitting American Idol
Richard Rushfield wrote for the Daily Beast:
"Cowell will be walking away from what may be the most lucrative job in the history of television. His departure will mark the denouement of a collaboration that in the past decade has been at the very apex of entertainment—last season, an average of 26 million viewers watched American Idol. But somehow the working relationship between Cowell and the rest of the show’s machine has transformed from the close bond felt by a ragtag band of brothers storming the gates of show business into a marriage of convenience fraught with bitterness.
For two seasons, Simon Cowell and Simon Fuller were barely speaking to each other.
For years now, even as the show has continued to dominate the television landscape, life on the set was constantly tested by the love/hate battle that raged between American Idol’s creator (Simon Fuller) and its iconic star (Cowell)–a symbiotic relationship with stakes so high, few dared to imagine its end."
A must read.