Simon Cowell has spoken out for the first time over the recent departure of Little Mix from his record label, Syco.

The pop industry heavy-hitter spoke to The Sun on Wednesday (November 14th), four days after it was revealed over the weekend that Syco had parted ways with Little Mix ahead of the release of their new album, Woman Like Me. Instead, the four-piece girl group has moved to RCA, another part of the wider Sony structure that also includes Cowell’s imprint.

Cowell said the disagreement with Little Mix's managers, Modest Management, “wasn't down to money”.

“Basically, they said we'd done a terrible job. I had agreed not to talk about this publicly because I thought it was a private matter. I said 'We can't work with the management, it's as simple as that'.”

Simon CowellSimon Cowell's Syco label suffered the loss of Little Mix

Little Mix had formed in 2011 on the eighth season of Cowell’s ‘The X Factor’, being the first group to win the competition, immediately signing up to Syco.

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However, the 59 year old mogul insisted there was no bad blood between the girls and him and his label. “As I said in my email to them, I stand by the fact they are the hardest working bunch of girls I've ever worked with. They deserve everything they've got.”

Little MixLittle Mix pictured in 2017

Cowell did express frustration at how “embarrassing” the situation was with Little Mix, though, and said that Syco was being “misrepresented”.

“Why do artists think they're more important than staff members? They're not. They're the same. The irony was the record they were arguing about, which is Woman Like Me, they didn't want to record. This was one of those ironic times that we were having a hit and nobody was happy.”

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