Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly have revealed how they threatened to quit their Britain’s Got Talent hosting roles.
The iconic Geordie duo were at the centre of controversy earlier this month after their controversial first promo for their new podcast, Hanging Out with Ant & Dec.
Now, however, both presenters have claimed that they ‘weren’t having a very nice time’ due to head judge Simon Cowell‘s lateness on the talent show that they have hosted since 2007.
Speaking on the Stick To Football podcast, Ant said about Simon: ‘He’s a really charming bloke with a great sense of humour.
‘He’s funny, generous and we get on well with him. We’ve always kind of had a good relationship with him because we’re quite honest with him and I think he appreciates that.
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‘He asks our opinion and trusts our opinion, and I think he respects the fact that we’ve been doing it for as long as we have.
‘We’ve been annoyed at him a few times over the years. We went to LA to see him to tell him we were going to leave Britain’s Got Talent because we weren’t having a very nice time.
‘He was always late it was gone through his period where he would just never turn up on time.’
Dec then explained how they were in the show ‘less and less’ and they were wondering whether to leave and put our energies elsewhere as it was ‘taking up a lot of our time’.
He explained: ‘[Simon] went “oh well no you can’t leave and I’ll turn up on time, and we’ll make sure that you’re featured more and that you’ll have more fun with it”.
‘So we sat there having lunch and he went “I can’t believe you were thinking of leaving” and he leaned over in the restaurant in the middle of LA and started tickling me going “you will never leave me”.’
Previously, former BGT judge David Walliams confirmed how the music mogul has ‘zero sense of timekeeping’ and often turned up to auditions ‘five hours late’.
Ant and Dec’s comments come after their first episode of their new podcast caused fierce backlash.
The first advert they released, which featured the presenters pegged to a clothesline on a garden set, was called ‘incredibly damaging’ by Mind, one of the leading charities in the UK offering support to people struggling with their mental health.
It was also described as ‘triggering’ and ‘deeply disappointing’ on social media.
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