Simon Cowell Wanted Whitney Houston For The X Factor USA Judging Role

12 February 2012, 22:22 | Updated: 12 February 2012, 22:53

The music mogul says the late singer's name had been mentioned as a potential replacement judge on the Fox reality series.

Simon Cowell has revealed that Whitney Houston was one of the names being considered for one of the vacant judging positions on The X Factor USA.

The 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' singer was discovered dead yesterday (11^th February) at the age of 48, during her stay at the Beverley Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, and The X Factor judge Simon has admitted he was "devastated" by the news.

Simon told Piers Morgan on CNN last night that Whitney was one of the "greatest superstars" of all time, and admitted he had been eyeing her for a role on his music reality series.

"We were ironically going to meet on Monday and of course one of the names we were going to talk about in that meeting as a possible mentor on the new series of The X Factor was going to be Whitney Houston," Simon revealed. 

"Given the choice, I would have liked to have taken her under my wing as well, because she would have been the ultimate, ultimate mentor to any contestant coming on the show," he added.

Simon Cowell has since paid tribute to Whitney Houston in an interview with Capital FM where he described the 'I Will Always Love You' singer as a "rarified breed".

View our gallery of Whitney Houston's life and career in pictures here.