Louis Walsh has some controversial views on what it takes it be a star and it has nothing to do with musical talent.

People who are good at sales, or some other business wholly involving people, all have two things in common.  They are the ability to talk and the ability to remember names.  A man noted for his people skills is David Frost and he frightened people more than once by calling them by their first name after meeting them once years before.  I can’t cite a case like that about Louis Walsh, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I did hear a story like that about him.  He is easy with names, facts and ongoing relationships.  He always gives instant answers.  He gives lengthy answers very quickly.  He never stutters but, like any fast talker, he tends to clutter.

I met him in the bar in the Four Seasons hotel.  I sat with a colleague with our backs to the wall beside the main entrance.  Louis walked in and continued towards the entrance to the restaurant.  I went after him and called his name.  He turned, grasped my hand firmly and uttered my first name.  We went into the restaurant.  He always gives interviews there.  “It’s a good place to do an interview because there’s never much noise and there’s always parking outside.   That’s why I usually have them here…Everybody knows me here, so it’s nice,” he says.  He looks like what he is, like someone in show business.  He was wearing a blazer with a spotted silk scarf.  Underneath he was wearing a mock neck sweater with a zip in front of the neck.  It was unzipped revealing a designer shirt with a blue Bengal stripe.

We sat in the restaurant.  “I always have fish and chips here,” he says and we all order fish and chips.  He had just been working in Sony.  His real job he calls it.  “I’ve got three or four records coming out with them,” he says.  “Westlife and all that.”  He only used to be interviewed by celebrity magazines, but now he’s doing the serious stuff.  “The Independent was a serious one and The Sunday Times… [I] did The Sunday Telegraph.  I normally don’t do the serious newspapers…the show [The X Factor] is so big in the UK it’s crossed into everything.”  The X Factor certainly is huge.   17 million people in the UK watched Jedward eliminated from the contest and one million watched it in Ireland.  That’s a record in both countries.

The X Factor is the show that made him famous.   In spite of his prominence in the music business, he was not someone who would be recognised on the streets before he did RTÉ’s Popstars in 2002.  I asked him if he missed his anonymity.  “Not really.  It’s a joke,” he says.  “I think I’m well known.  I don’t think I’m famous… I think I’m very lucky to be doing what I’m doing, because I never wanted this.  I didn’t want to be on TV.  I never thought I would be.  But they offered me a lot of money to do the very first show which was Popstars the Rivals and I didn’t even think about the TV until they offered me the job.  It was the money that enticed me and I did it.  And then Simon [Simon Cowell] offered me this.  I’m doing something I love and I’m getting paid for it.  I love it.  It’s a bit of a drug now.”

He admits his relationship with Dannii Minogue, who was a judge on the show, was stormy. He says: “This year I’m getting on with her much, much better.  But the first year Sharon [Sharon Osbourne] was there, and I’m a really good friend of Sharon.  Really, really good pals.  I’m meeting her on Sunday in London.  I bond in with Sharon, and Sharon and Dannii just didn’t get on.  It’s two women, typical of women and they just didn’t get on well. And I was very much in Sharon’s camp, so Sharon kind of demands loyalty.” So the absence of Sharon explains the improvement in their relationship, but he adds: “She’s looking better.  She’s got a nice boyfriend.  I think she’s happier.  I think she’s in a happier space than she was.  I actually admire her more than I ever did this year to be quite honest with you.”  This is in spite of the fact she voted Jedward off the show.  “She probably did the right thing.  For her it was a singing show.  If she had kept them in she would have been a hypocrite.  So I knew it was coming.  It was fine.  I think she’s a very professional judge.”

The last mention of Jedward prompted me to ask if The X Factor is a singing contest and Dannii Minogue repeatedly asked this question before casting the vote to get rid of Jedward.  The answer was forthright: “It’s not.  Because the best singers in the world are not stars.  They’re usually backing singers.  If you see George Michael on stage and he’s got these ten backing singers they are the best singers in the world behind him.  But they’re not stars.  Kylie, her sister, [Dannii’s sister] is a classic example. She’s not the best singer in the world, but she’s a proper pop star same as Madonna.  She’s not a great singer.  Put her in here, get her to sing a cappella and it will just be a very average voice.  Same with Robbie Williams.  And yet they are all pop stars, because people buy into the personality and the appeal of the sex and all the rest.”  So the image is where the star quality is.  He concedes that Dannii probably had a point, but he had a good reason to put the boys through: “… they were the best of a bad lot.  I got the worst category this year [which is] the groups.  It’s the hardest thing.  I put two girl bands through.  They were voted out [in] the first two weeks.  So luckily I took a chance with Jedward.  I put them through and they’re a household name already.  Everyone’s talking about them.”

“Because the best singers in the world are not stars.  They’re usually backing singers.  If you see George Michael on stage and he’s got these ten backing singers they are the best singers in the world behind him.  But they’re not stars.”

I asked what was going to happen to the Grimes twins.  “I don’t know.  I think they want to be pop stars.  I think they want to make a pop record… a lot of people are interested in them.  Everywhere they go young girls go fucking crazy, absolutely crazy like I’ve never seen before.”

He thinks that they are a really good act even if they can’t sing.  “They showed up and they looked like two dolls and they gave this really silly interview.  And they were so silly we remembered them and they had that high hair.  We didn’t give them the image.  They came in with the whole image themselves.  They’re only 17.  They live in this world of Britney.  All they had was Britney and Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync and Jonas Brothers, that’s all they talk about.  They don’t want to talk about real life.  They had the time of their lives.  I’m glad I took the chance.  Because it was the biggest story of the show, biggest ratings we ever had.  So everybody’s happy, it’s a good result.”

Now that we were talking about contestants I introduced a darker side of contestants in these so-called reality shows.  I mentioned the name of Paula Goodspeed.  “Who committed suicide,” he instantly added.  “Who committed suicide,” I echoed.  It’s been three years since she was on American Idol and he remembered the name even though he had no direct involvement with that show.  It’s the name thing.  He just seems to remember names and all kinds of details.  The lady in question was a Paula Abdul impressionist and she auditioned in front of Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.  Cowell insulted her about the braces on her teeth, asking how she got past the metal detectors and how she could sing with all the metal in her mouth.  Then Cowell, Abdul and a third judge rejected Goodspeed.  She committed suicide by gassing herself in her car near Abdul’s home.

His justification is simple.  It’s their free choice to audition: “… I mean a lot of the people that come to do auditions for us [he pauses a moment here and then drops his voice] they’re not right.  They’re not right at all.  But we don’t force them to queue up.”  I then say: “There must be mentally ill people who…?”  He cuts across me:  “There’s a few.  Probably a few in this hotel somewhere.  But I mean we don’t force them to come and do the audition for us.  We don’t know what’s going on in their minds.  We really don’t know but all we can do is try and be honest with them.  I try to be honest with them and try and let them down easy, you know.”  There was a stress on easy.  He admits that some people shouldn’t be on the show and there is the comedic appeal of watching someone making a fool of themselves on TV.  “We don’t force these people to queue.  They queue outside all day.  They want to be on TV.  It’s their thing.  Nobody forces them except themselves.”

The only time I didn’t get an instant response was when I asked if he had a partner. “Huh?” he said.  “Do you have a partner?” I repeated.  “I’ve a few,” he replied and everybody laughed.  Then he repeated the sentence.  I asked him if he ever considered getting married and if he ever had any offers.  “No, I wouldn’t want to get married.  I don’t think the hours would suit me… I’m married to my job. I’m always away.  I like to be free.  I like to be so free.  I do my own thing.”

Tom Lyons is a writer and journalist.