Britney Spears is nearing a deal to serve as judge on next season’s The X Factor, a well-placed source tells The Hollywood Reporter. Spears’ fiance, agent Jason Trawick, is negotiating the contract which could be signed as soon as next week.
Recently, reports surfaced that the pop superstar was interested in joining the panel, but according to an insider, it was show creator Simon Cowell who made the initial approach. Spears is signed to Sony Music’s RCA Records, which absorbed her original label Jive in 2011 and has exclusive music rights to X Factor artists.
As one of Sony’s Music’s marquee acts (33 million albums sold in the U.S. and counting), Spears brings legitimacy as a successful recording artist, something critics of X Factor say was missing in last year’s competition, as well as a level of unpredictability and drama that also was largely absent from the Fox show when Nicole Scherzinger and Paula Abdul were judges.
Full story: Britney Spears nearing deal to judge ‘X-Factor’