Twenty-three years after becoming a household name as one of the original judges on “American Idol” and 15 years after forming the megawatt boy band One Direction on the British show “The X Factor,” TV personality and music executive Simon Cowell hopes to capture lightning in a bottle yet again.
On November 24, 2025, Netflix dropped the trailer for the new show “Simon Cowell: The Next Act,” which premieres on December 10. In a video Cowell, 66, posted the day before, the “America’s Got Talent” judge admitted that his pursuit to find the next great boy band on the show “is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
Simon Cowell’s Wife Will Appear in New Netflix Series
Two years in the making, “Simon Cowell: The Next Act” is different than the viewer-voting competitions Cowell has been involved with over the last two decades, including NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” on which he currently serves as a judge.
In fact, the trailer reveals that his fiancée of four years, Lauren Silverman, appears in the show, seen in clips comforting and encouraging the music mogul through the ups and downs of trying to put together a new boy band.
According to a press announcement from Netflix, “This is unlike any show he has made before. From raw open casting calls to the release of their debut single, this is an all-access pass for viewers to catch every moment of Simon’s next chapter. Will he strike gold once again?”
The six-episode series will follow Cowell as he auditions young men eager to be part of his next boy band, which he equates to “mining for diamonds” in the trailer. Although he says there’s a “massive opportunity” to create the next big boy band, he also says it’s a “huge risk.”
“If this goes wrong, it will be ‘Simon Cowell has lost it,'” he said.
Simon Cowell Has an Impressive Track Record of Creating Stars
GettyIn the trailer for “Simon Cowell: The Next Act,” Cowell says he was motivated to create another talent show because “I miss where I started, signing artists and working with bands.”
He does have quite a track record of turning little-known musicians into massive superstars, including predicting the massive success of early “American Idol” winners Kelly Clarkson (2002) and Carrie Underwood (2005).
In 2006, after Leona Lewis won the third season of “The X Factor” in Great Britain, she immediately signed with Cowell’s record label. Dominating the charts with songs like “Bleeding Love” and “Better in Time,” she sold 60 million records, according to NBC.
In 2010, Cowell put together five contestants from “The X Factor” to create the boy band One Direction; they placed third on the show, but went on to become one of the biggest groups in the world.
Two years later, he did the same thing with a group of female solo artists on the American version of “The X Factor,” forming the group Fifth Harmony. They had hit songs like “Work From Home” and “Worth It,” and were the precursor to Camila Cabello’s successful pop career.
What about a girl band??????
Then there were his comments about Jennifer Hudson.. that she was out of her depth, and not capable of a better performance. She is now an EGOT winner! He has since apologized for his comments.. but it does show that not everyone is right 100% of the time!