X Factor judge Simon Cowell remembered Camilla Cabello and Harry Styles auditions says he is happy with their achievements
Simon Cowell has been remembering the moment he first saw Camila Cabello and Harry Styles on X Factor's auditions.
Cowell spoke in an interview with Extra that how X Factor's American and British versions helped many of the great singers in launching their careers.
The show was founded in 2004 by a former American Idol judge.
Styles, 28, joined Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne, and Niall Horan in making solo auditions for The X Factor UK in 2010. After being rejected as single performers, all of these artists were pushed to create bands to remain in the competition.
They submitted and subsequently became the band One Direction, finishing third in the competition.
Since One Direction's hiatus, Styles has put out three albums and achieved several major hits, including the number-one songs on the Billboard Hot 100, Watermelon Sugarand As It Was.
"I remember his audition like it was yesterday," Cowell told Extra.
"He was very charming, he was very confident, he was very funny, and I liked him."
"I just thought there's something … special about him," added the British entrepreneur.
"You never forget those moments, and, like I said, genuinely if we weren't making people's careers successful, I would never be making these shows today," he said.
About Camilla Cabello, Cowell recalled:
"She wasn't really supposed to audition," Cowell revealed.
"I happened to go backstage, and I saw her crying, asked her why she was crying, and she said, you know, it was too late for her to audition because she was a reserve, whatever that meant."
He continued, "I said to her, 'Well, I'm one of the producers, you just got an audition.'"
Cowell also discussed in-depth the celebrity careers he helped establish, saying their success is what motivates him to continue.
"When those moments work, and seeing Camila today or Harry Styles, Leona Lewis, Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, there's been so many times luckily where I've been there at that moment where their career is going to go in a completely different direction," he told the outlet.
"If we didn't have those things happen, then there'd be no point making the shows."