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X Factor Fight! Fight! Who's Calling Simon Cowell "Childish" and Nicole Scherzinger "Grumpy?"

Judges of Fox's reality competition air out the beef with each other

By Jenna Mullins Oct 26, 2011 9:20 PMTags

Simon Cowell is a lot of things. Blunt. Straightforward. British. But is he, as one of his fellow X Factor stars claim, childish in his judging methods?

We caught up with Cowell, Paula Abdul, Steve Jones, Nicole Scherzinger and L.A. Reid after last night's X Factor elimination show, and someone had some pretty harsh words in regard to Simon's attitude. Of course, the master of mean had some harsh thoughts of his own to let loose…

"Simon is the worst!" host Jones exclaims. "For such an intelligent and successful man he can be just so childish. Whenever L.A. was trying to speak, Simon would go like this to the crowd [raises arms] so they would drown him out basically. So they just would cheer all over his speech. It's so childish, yet so yummy."

Either he means the drama is yummy, or someone has a man-crush on Simon! But you know who isn't Simon's No. 1 fan right now? Scherzinger. Especially after last night when it seemed like they were butting heads.

"I have no idea what her problem was tonight, seriously," Cowell tells us. "Somebody was a little bit grumpy." And when we brought up the bad blood to the former Pussycat Doll, she just laughed it off. "I am pretty tough. I know how to handle [Simon] but sometimes I've just got to bite back," she says. "I can't help it, especially when he talks about me not connecting with my contestant when I know how hard I've worked with them and the time I've spent."

Speaking of those contestants, Simon revealed that he had a soft spot for Melanie, and even admitted to us that (gasp!) he was wrong. "Judging by the reaction tonight and the point that she proved, she is a class act, and I like the fact that she bounced back and she proved a point. And I was happy to admit I was wrong," he says. We don't understand a world in which Simon admits he made a mistake. Is the sky still up?

Are you enjoying The X Factor? Who do you think is headed for victory? Hit the comments!