L.A. Reid Says X Factor Was The Worst Thing He’s Ever Done

L.A. Reid did not like the time he spent as a judge on the hit reality show, X Factor. Who knew? During a Q&A at an event in Cannes over the weekend, the man behind acts such as TLC, Usher and Toni Braxton said X-Factor was “the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

He didn’t stop there. The music mogul said he almost lost his taste in music. “More importantly, it really affected my taste — it almost destroyed it. It completely threw me off,” he said, noting that he planned to detail his experience in an upcoming book. “What works for television isn’t necessarily the thing that works in the traditional journey of music, so I adjusted my taste for television.” He continued: “But the truth is, I lowered my bar — my bar was quite high, if I’m being honest, and as a result, I didn’t have the same level of success. The bar is quite high again now, but it was damaging. I worked with Simon Cowell, who I love and have great respect for and he has great taste, but being around him for that long, I started to take on his taste, and I’m an amateur at having his taste — I’m good at my kind of taste.”

“To be honest? The truth is: The Voice cleaned our clock,” Reid said in regards to the XFactor’s success. He did note that he felt it was a successful show, with 14 million viewers, but The Voice took them out.