Simon Cowell went "too far" with his crushing put-downs on The X Factor - admitting he was a "d***" and is "sorry".

The 66-year-old music mogul has faced a backlash in recent years over his jibes to aspiring singers on the TV talent show - which ran from 2004 until 2018 in the UK and between 2011 and 2013 in the US - and Cowell has now acknowledged he was too mean.

In an interview with The Times newspaper, Cowell conceded he had sometimes been "a d***", adding: "I did realise I've probably gone too far. What can I say? I'm sorry. I'm not proud of it. But then again, the upside is that it made the shows really popular worldwide."

Cowell has returned to the talent show landscape with Simon Cowell: The Next Act - a Netflix series which shows him putting together a new boyband called December 10.

The show garnered lacklustre reviews after it debuted in December, but Cowell is adamant he does not read critics' responses to his work and he is now less invested in ratings.

He told the publication: "I never read them. The only thing I can judge is my own taste. I can't please everyone. If you don't like it, you don't like it, but that's your call.

"I'm more interested in the people who really watch this stuff out of choice, rather than those for whom it's their job to write about it. And I am also aware that anything I do, it's fair game to give us a bit of a whack. So I was expecting that. I haven't looked at ratings in seven, eight years."

He also admitted he has high hopes for December 10 and hopes having seven members will give them all a solid support system.

Cowell added: "Maybe that was part of the decision about having seven as well. There's more of them to rely on each other. Because right now everything's rosy; it's exciting, it's new, it's like a dream.

"When you actually get out there and you read the first bad comment, that's when it's a reality. But they're very grounded, these boys, and as prepared as I think I could possibly get them."