X Factor and American Idol Guru Simon Cowell to Get Biography

Simon Cowell, who has served as the acrid judge on the popular television shows American Idol and The X Factor, will have a biography published in spring of 2012.

Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell, written by investigative biographer Tom Bower, will be published by Random House imprint Ballantine Books, according to The Associated Press.

Bower's works include portraits of high-profile figures such as the UK's former prime minister Gordon Brown and English business tycoon Bernie Ecclestone.

His other investigative works include Broken Dreams: Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football, published in 2003.

Bower's biography of Cowell, for which he had hundreds of hours of access to the man, per Ballantine, should be successful, considering the love-him-or-hate-him subject.

Cowell has certainly known the ups and downs of the music and television industries. He created Grease is the Word, a reality show about casting two unknowns for the iconic lead roles of Danny and Sandy in a West End revival of the popular musical Grease.

It flopped.

It has been slaughtered by the critics and rightly so, Cowell told the Evening Standard in 2007. It is far too similar to our other formats.

The feisty Brit drew mixed reactions from U.S. audiences while judging on American Idol. Contestants were more likely to fire back at him than to Paula Abdul or Randy Jackson.

The criticism against the acerbic judge won him some pop culture backlash -- and he seemed to enjoy it.

He had a cameo in the comedy Scary Movie 3, in which he essentially played his judge-self at a rap battle. He was seated alone at a table with a fruity drink in front of him.

I thought you were both absolutely dreadful, he told the performers in his signature monotone. Ghastly. I don't know what I'm doing here. This club is totally pathetic.

His criticism of the performers resulted in gunshots to his person, followed by applause.

Haters can say what they want, but Cowell has been credited with making shows such as American Idol and The X Factor successful, and some of his harsher criticisms proved to be quite entertaining.

Who could forget Frank Sinatra-like crooner John Stevens' last performance on the third season of American Idol, when he sang Cuban singer Gloria Estefan's Music of My Heart?

Cowell commended Stevens on taking criticism like a man, but admitted he was not a fan of the then-16-year-old's performance.

I honestly wish every ex-contestant could behave in your way, Cowell told Stevens. Now the bad news. You and Latin music go together like chocolate ice cream and an onion.

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