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Simon Cowell is making headlines for his Netflix series The Midas Touch in search of a new English boy band. Recently, a post by user @superTV247 on X (formerly Twitter) went viral which stated that the auditions for The Midas Touch in Liverpool allegedly only witnessed 40 contestants.
The post showcased an image with railings and some people standing in line seemingly for an audition. It reached over 7.3 million views however the X community discussion prompts that the statement is false.
According to The Sun, on Saturday, July 6, the image posted by X user @superTV247 was captured by photographer Andy Kelvin. As per the publication, the auditions were open in Liverpool, however, only a few participants were seen and not more than 40 people showed up.
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An observer at the Albert Dock where the auditions were held, told the media outlet about the participants. They stated:
“They started arriving slowly from about 9am on Saturday but the biggest number in the queue never amounted to more than about 40. By early afternoon, the number arriving had virtually dried up and it was the same story on the Sunday audition.”
More about Simon Cowell receiving criticism from BTS' fans and The Midas Touch series auditions
The English TV personality Simon Cowell who had previously expressed his wish to make another band as big as British-Irish band One Direction reportedly saw a small turnout on the auditions of The Midas Touch.
This garnered attention from netizens and K-pop fans as previously he received backlash for allegedly not crediting the South Korean K-pop group BTS.
A source speaking to The Sun reportedly shared that the organizers were looking forward to a huge number of contestants who would be interested in forming a band under Simon Cowell. Seeing the huge crowds previously during X Factor, the railings were placed in huge numbers. They stated:
“The amount of railings they put up suggested they were expecting hundreds or thousands of people to arrive and pack out the queues but they had a fraction of those kinds of numbers.”
Previously, for his comments on the biggest boy band in the Rolling Stone interview in June 2024, Simon Cowell received criticism from K-pop and BTS fans online. He stated that there has not been a more successful band than One Direction which debuted 14 years back. He explained:
“Every generation deserves a megastar boyband and I don’t think there has been one to have the success of One Direction in over 14 years.”
BTS is known to be one of the most successful boy groups in the world with one Grammy nomination, selling out huge stadiums in the United Kingdom and United States, and many other notable achievements.
ARMYs took to social media to express their thoughts over his comments accusing him of denying the success of the K-pop boy group and their influence on the audiences, in the past few years.
Meanwhile, The Midas Touch auditions are scheduled to be held in Dublin, Ireland in the second half of July 2024 while three auditions are confirmed to be held in London at the beginning of August 2024. Furthermore, two out of nine audition dates had been canceled reportedly due to traveling schedules according to the organizers.
The Midas Touch series, which is on the mission of looking for new English bands, was supposed to commence the audition on Thursday, July 4 in Newcastle. However, it was officially canceled because of travel issues.
