Art Of The Dyl

News broke late last night that Simon Cowell has halted production on this year’s edition of X Factor because he’s had the extremely fresh idea of giving his ailing franchise a “dramatic overhaul”. The usual tabloid suspects are already spinning the Syco line that this is all definitely Simon’s idea, but the actual story is a little different.

Network bosses at ITV have been wanting to pull X Factor after last year’s ratings massacre but are finding it hard to wriggle out of the contract. Not least because Cowell has a hostage in the form of Britain’s Got Talent, a show that ITV can’t afford to lose.

ITV tried to offer him a bigger, more prestigious deal for BGT earlier this week if he’d only do the decent thing and stick the bullet in X Factor, but he’s not budging – and he’s got contract law on his side.

So now we all have to suffer the consequences as he improvises his Plan B.

Given his track record, it was no real shock to hear that Chris Grayling’s plan to award a ferry contract to a firm with no ships went tits up – but his haplessness goes back much further than has been reported.

An old friend of his who now works in the lobbying industry has been happily chuckling with peers about how his primary school chum Chris used to wear slip-on shoes long after the rest of his classmates had all graduated to laces, because Chris had such trouble learning to tie knots.

No-one seems to be reporting the fact that Sir Bernard Gray has quietly stepped down as Chairman of TI Media. Has he taken out another injunction or something?

It’s possible that we might have done Steve Coogan a slight disservice. Last week we told you that he had said to a friend, when showing off his first Ferrari, that it was “worth its weight in cunt”.

However, we have since been informed that when he pulled up to the Spitting Image Christmas party in that same Ferrari (a car he’d bought with all the extra money he’d got from doing adverts) he told colleagues that it was worth its weight in “twat” – not “cunt”.

We are happy to correct the record.

Staff setting up the BRITs will soon be breathing sighs of relief as next Wednesday’s awards will be the last under Jason Iley’s tenure. Reports reached us from last year’s event that Iley was seen dropping his wallet in front of a server so that he could make a “WHILE YER DOWN THERE, LUV!” gag at her when she bent down to pick it up for him.

And all while sporting one of those white #TimesUp pin badges he was so keen to have everyone wear.

We could hardly let Valentine’s Day pass without a few tales of celebrity seduction.

Someone who was working backstage at the O2 when Prince had his residency there in 2007 ended up flirting quite heavily with the Purple One. She obviously made an impression on him, as he had one of his team approach her with an invitation to join him in his dressing room.

They had a few drinks, a bit of a snog and then Prince asked if they could go back to hers. She said it would be fine but she had literally just moved into her place and didn’t actually have a proper bed yet. So they ended up having sex on a mattress on her floor.

He stayed the night and was supposedly very sweet and attentive throughout.

But his sweetest move? Getting a brand new bed delivered direct to her door the very next afternoon…

We’ve assembled a huge batch of celebrity seduction stories on popbitch.com for Valentine’s Day, all of which you can read if you’ve signed up for an Agate wallet (if not: get one already).

We tried to keep it pretty A-list – with tales of Michael Fassbender, Jake Gyllenhaal, Prince Charles, Sir Ian McKellan and the like. But there was one story we really enjoyed revisiting that didn’t quite fit in, about Hollyoaks-turned-Casualty-turned-Hollyoaks star James Redmond. So we’re putting it in here.

Back in his heyday, James was Hollyoaks’ champion shagger (and by Hollyoaks standards, that’s no mean feat). One night, after bringing a local girl home from a party, he found himself getting distracted mid-act by a car that was honking its horn impatiently outside.

James delicately pulled out and went to the window to investigate. “What is it?” asked his lady friend. “Oh,” said Redmond, “it’s your taxi,” returning to the bed and re-inserting himself. “So we’d better get a move on”.

[Read ‘Love Letters’ on Popbitch]

We read reports about how Bob Geldof’s 2011 album ‘How To Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell’ is being scrutinised by Her Majesty’s beancounters with great interest.

As questions are currently being raised about Sir Bob’s back catalogue, it might be worth someone asking around at PRS to see which accounts his mechanical songwriting royalties are linked to. For while we have no reason at all to doubt that he forwards on any money generated by ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ to the Band Aid Trust, he may well find that there is an easier and more direct way to structure his accounts there.

Just a suggestion, of course. We’re sure he knows what he’s doing.

Michael Sanchez may have finally admitted that he was the one who leaked the Jeff Bezos sexts (as we told you a full calendar month ago) but the National Enquirer, and Dylan Howard in particular, are still not off the hook.

This isn’t Dildo’s first brush with the law either. Back in his homeland of Australia, he got himself caught up in a police investigation while working as a TV journalist in 2007 after he broadcast sensitive details about two unnamed football players on air from what transpired to be stolen medical records. Dylan was sacked from the station a day after the police eventually cleared him, but no-one would hire him after that so he fled to start anew in the States instead.

Now that federal investigators are revisiting the terms of his immunity deal after he potentially blackmailed Jeff Bezos, he may need another new country to flee to.

We hear Saudi Arabia is lovely this time of year…?

Every week we are sent at least one story about a celebrity who owes a debt of some size to one of our dear readers and we’ve had just about enough of them ripping you all off. It’s high time they start paying up. So this week, we decided to do something about it.

One reader emailed in to let us know that, back when their mother was at RADA in the 60s, Ian McShane borrowed 2/6- from her and is yet to pay it back, despite having made literal millions over the course of his career.

Well guess what, McShane? We’re making moves to assume that debt. Having adjusted for both decimalisation and inflation, we’ve put in an offer to buy the creditor out of it for the full whack.

We’re yet to hear back – but if she accepts? You’ll owe Popbitch £2.77…

Have an outstanding celebrity debt? We’re interested to hear hello@popbitch.com

It’s been 15 years since Kanye released The College Dropout. Wonder what Freud would make of him now…
[Read ‘Latent Registration’ on Popbitch]

The Max Martin musical ‘& Juliet’ has got a trailer
[Watch trailer on YouTube]

Spitting Image puppets for sale
[Big on Prop Store Auction]

Interesting investigation into those competing Fyre Fest docs
[Read on New Republic]

Neil Gaiman comes out as Team Badger in a Guardian webchat
[See his answer]

Did the Matrix build our reality-denying world?
[Read on Vulture]

As X Factor is wheezing its last, you might be interested in the little-discussed story of how Simon Cowell got his early break in reality TV
[Read ‘Syco Paths’ on Popbitch]

Local news of the week
[See on The Argus]

Popbitch Popquiz! There’s a couple of tables left for Tuesday 19th February, plus some fresh new dates for March. Come and join us!
[Book in for the Popbitch Popquiz]

Still Bored?
We ran out of Baboon V Badger books within a couple of hours last week – but if you wanted to own a different bit of Popbitch history (and help bolster our legal funds) we’ve got 20 or so limited edition prints of the artwork we had made of the legal letter that was sent to threaten us about that old olive oil/paddling pool/sex party injunction. Was £20, now just £10!
[Buy ‘Not For Publication’]