When it comes to self confidence, Simon Cowell is usually unflappable.
But the 51-year-old has admitted he is feeling very nervous about launching the American version of X Factor.
He said: 'This better bloody work or I am in huge trouble.'
The show, due to start in September, is set to be the most expensive reality show ever, at just under $3.5 million per episode.
And Cowell also knows his audience will be paying close attention as to whether the show matches up to Idol, which he famously quit to instead bring X Factor to the States.
Cowell gave his 'better bloody work' comment to the Wall Street Journal, which estimated in a profile that Cowell's net worth as big as much as $300 million.
Cowell also told the financial newspaper that a couple at an LA restaurant once offered to pay him $150,000 to come to their home and critique them while they had sex - insisting he declined the offer.
Cowell, who said his cheeky jabs started at age four, when he told his mother when she was dressed for a formal event that she looked like a poodle, said he first knew he'd bring 'X Factor' to the U.S. in 2009.
He said that although the UK show was a huge success he was bored by it.
He sat listening to singers file into a Glasgow hotel room, and recalled: 'I literally stood up and said, 'I can't do this any more.'
'So we got back on a plane. I was in a filthy mood. I thought, this show is boring. I don't want to do it any more.
'Then I got an idea. I wanted to shoot the auditions in an arena, like concerts.'
Ten days later, Mr Cowell walked out to 5,000 screaming fans at a packed London exhibition centre for the first live X Factor audition.
'That's when it crossed my mind that this show is absolutely coming to America,' he said.
He still admits the U.S. show could go either way. Recalling an audition in New Jersey just after Cheryl Cole was fired, he said: 'It felt like there were 250 people in that room and every one of them was petrified.
'I thought to myself, 'This is either going to work or it's not, and there's nothing I can do about it'.'
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