Simon Cowell became famous as the judge everyone loved to hate on “American Idol,” but in his “America’s Got Talent” debut Tuesday night, he was more smiles than snark.
The formerly acerbic Brit appeared alongside judges Heidi Klum, Mel B and Howie Mandel in the Season 11 premiere, marking his return to US reality competition show judging after “The X Factor” ended in 2013. And if the contestants were expecting to be ripped apart by Cowell, plenty received a surprisingly pleasant reception.
When a man did a cheesy , Cowell couldn’t help but crack a huge grin through the whole act. He gave a standing ovation to a gross act of a and a meat hook up his nostril that made the rest of the audience squirm. To a gimmicky drag group called , which earned an immediate “no” from Mandel, Cowell joked that their version of the “Spice Up Your Life” vocals “was better than the original.”
He downright heaped praise on a initially timid 13-year-old opera singer, who received a golden buzzer from judge Mel B. “I have never heard anything like that in all the years I’ve been doing this show. It was unbelievable,” he said. “What made it even better is you are such a sweet person, so humble, not even aware of how amazing you are.”
That’s not to say Cowell didn’t get in a few jabs. Unsurprisingly, he was toughest on the singers, telling one member of a middling boy group, “You shouldn’t be singing.” When Mel B countered that they were just nervous, he revised his comment to, “OK you shouldn’t be singing loudly. This wasn’t anywhere near good enough and you’ve got to come back much better than that.” To a girl singing with her guitar he remarked, “I’m not going to be saying in 30 minutes’ time I’ve seen something or saw something I’ve never heard before.”
But even when he didn’t like an act, he found something nice to say, as with middle-aged couple Charles and Rose, who in which the 60-something Rose shimmied and flashed some skin in her flapper dress while her partner struggled to remember the lyrics to to Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas.” Cowell told them, “It is one of the worst acts I’ve seen and heard, but I can’t take my eyes off you, Rose.”
Guess the King of Mean has a heart, after all.