Nicole Scherzinger's Unexpected, Potty-Mouthed Resurrection on 'X Factor' U.K. Despite a dip in ratings, the Saturday night mainstay boasts one shining star: a Pussycat Doll dumped from the U.S. version of the Simon Cowell series. 
It hasn't been a banner year for The X Factor U.K. The series, whose performance show airs on Saturday nights, has been averaging eight million viewers, a significant drop from the 14 million of 2010 -- Simon Cowell's last year as a judge. As for the contestants, they're a largely generic lot, with the likely winner a former cruise-ship singer beloved by the natio'’s grandmothers.
But while the 2012 season may not have discovered many future hit-makers, it has unearthed a bright shining star: Nicole Scherzinger. The 34-year-old former Pussycat Doll is no stranger to American singing competitions -- two seasons on The Sing-Off, an unhappy one on the U.S. X Factor, not to mention her own start as a contestant on a star-searching reality show, 2001's Popstars -- but, in her first stint judging on a British panel and mentoring a trio of male singers, she's been nothing short of a revelation.
The version of Nicole Scherzinger on U.K.'s X Factor is, for one, funny -- repeatedly begging "humans and babies" for their votes, becoming fluent in the slang of Essex (England's New Jersey) and cryptically informing cruise singer Chris Maloney, "I'm more of a Cocoa Puffs girl and you're giving me vanilla skim milk on top of a Corn Flake." She's also an appealingly game participant in the series' real-lives-of-the-finalists video segments, happily wielding the price scanner in a British grocery store, the employer of one of her acts, and downing a full pint of beer in the pub frequented by another.
But chart success isn't the only reason for the night-and-day difference between her performances on the two shows. In Britain, there's no one to make her feel bad, put her down, condescend to her and ignore her. In other words, there's no Simon Cowell -- or a Cowell-dominated panel where there are a few designated roles for a female: she can be a punching bag (Paula Abdul), a pet (Cheryl Cole), a tolerable irritant (Demi Lovato), a dancing monkey (Abdul again), a stunningly unspectacular elephant in the room (Britney Spears), or she can just be invisible (Kara DioGuardi, Ellen Degeneres). The Nicole Scherzinger currently wowing the Brits was never given a chance to shine in the joyless U.S. iteration because her role was already cast in stone. If she didn’t shower praise on female contestants, she was branded jealous and catty. If she attempted to defend herself in confrontations with Cowell -- admittedly not her strong point -- she was lambasted as spacey and inarticulate. Ultimately, the only impression Scherzinger made in her single season on the American show was that she made a child cry. Cowell showed enough foresight to ship her off to the UK but what a waste of a great national resource. You can read the rest of the article here:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/liv...ctor-uk-396572 
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