Simon Cowell: 'Westlife Were The Ugliest Boyband In The World'

Simon Cowell says that he once thought that Westlife were the “ugliest band in the world.”

Appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the 54-year-old music mogul said he initially refused the chance to sign the Irish boyband purely based on their looks.

!Simon told the chat show host: "Another group auditioned for me. They were called Westlife. When they first came along they were the ugliest boy band in the world. Seriously, like you couldn't get uglier. I said to their manager at the time: ‘Forget it!’” Fortunately for Simon’s bank balance, their manager Louis Walsh persevered and brought them back to him six months later.

“He re-auditioned them but one of the ugly ones dyed his hair blonde for the second time I saw them and he got back into the group,” Simon explained.

“I didn't recognise him but it all turned out fine and later they sold 50 million albums or something."

It turns out that the “ugly one” was none other than Shane Filan who told Celebrity Juice last month that they managed dupe Simon.

At the start Simon actually didn't like me, he didn't want me in the band. In the first audition he wanted to get rid of me,” he said.

"So we got Simon back six months later and he loved the new guy and Louis said, 'Yeah we got rid of the other guy, he was crap!' This is the new guy."

Despite never cracking the notoriously difficult American market, Westlife were one of the most successful boybands of all time in the UK scoring 14 number one singles six chart-topping albums.