SIMON COWELL REPORTEDLY REGRETS DEAL WITH BRITNEY SPEARS

Simon Cowell is reportedly upset over Britney Spears’s behavior during an X Factor audition session last week when she failed to return to the judging table after an episode involving a singer “with a bad attitude.” Commenting that Spears “is apparently proving to [sic] difficult to deal with,” the London Daily Mirror cited an unnamed source as saying that Cowell is worried that Spears may not be “up to the strenuous task of being a full-time X Factor judge. … [He] fears he could have made a mistake signing her up for [$15 million.]” In an interview with MTV News Spears said that “for the most part” the performances that she has seen “were pretty bad.” Indeed, all of the judges walked off during the audition involving the truculent singer, but the others returned. As a Mirror source observed: “If a great singer appears and producers want to use the audition, you have to tell viewers why Britney wasn’t there. That’s not easy.”