Simon Cowell: The Next Act's 'fresh talent' claim questioned after contestant's past TV appearance resurfaces

Simon Cowell’s stated mission for Simon Cowell: The Next Act — discovering “fresh, new talent” for a boy band built from the ground up — is facing renewed scrutiny after the past television appearance of one contestant resurfaced.

The series, released on Netflix on December 10, documents Cowell’s search across the U.K. and Ireland for aspiring performers he described as untouched by the machinery of previous talent shows.

Yet among the hopefuls selected for the six-episode competition is 16-year-old Daniel Bretherton, who previously appeared on The Voice Kids just two years earlier.

The revelation has led to questions surrounding the scope and intention of Cowell’s “fresh talent” claim and its role within Simon Cowell: The Next Act.

Questions over talent scouting surface on Simon Cowell: The Next Act

Daniel Bretherton first entered the public eye on Season 7 of ITV’s The Voice Kids, where he performed as part of Ronan Keating’s team.

At the time, he was 14 and navigating personal setbacks far older than his years. His mother Ranveer said, 

“To be honest, if he had still been at his old school, he wouldn't have gone on the show, because he was so badly affected by the taunts from other children there.”

She recalled how 

“One of his videos got shared on social media, and he was taunted by other pupils. It got so bad that we decided to change schools, and it has worked out so well.”

Daniel progressed to the blind auditions from a pool of roughly 360,000 applicants and advanced to the Battles round before his elimination.

With no subsequent breakthrough in his music career, he now returns to competition on Simon Cowell: The Next Act as one of the teenagers selected for Cowell’s boy-band project.

Amid boot-camp challenges and vocal training, Daniel advanced into the top 12 and traveled with the final 16 to Miami, where the group rehearsed and filmed portions of the series.

Cowell’s stated vision for Simon Cowell: The Next Act centered firmly on the discovery of performers without prior industry visibility.

While discussing why he wanted to build a group from scratch, Cowell said,

“Right now, record labels aren't signing enough new talent. People don't knock on your door saying, ‘I've got a new band’. It doesn't happen. You've got to go out there yourself and do it.”

His repeated emphasis on “new talent” framed the competition as a reset, distancing it from the established pipelines associated with The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, and American Idol.

The resurfacing of Daniel’s history on The Voice Kids, therefore, raised questions not about his merit, but about whether the series’ foundational premise was as untested as advertised.

Cowell compared his boy-band search to “mining for diamonds,” expressing a belief that the process would uncover voices yet unheard.

But Daniel’s return from a rival network’s format introduces a more familiar pattern: reality franchises rediscovering contestants at earlier stages of development.

Throughout Simon Cowell: The Next Act, Cowell reiterates the broader motivation behind the series. In the trailer, he said,

“As much as I love my job on TV, I miss where I started signing artists and working with bands. There is a massive opportunity. I am going to find a new boy band.”

He also acknowledged the stakes of the endeavor, stating, 

“There’s so much at stake. There is a huge risk here. If this goes wrong, it will be ‘Simon Cowell has lost it.’”

Daniel’s inclusion reflects a widespread reality in today’s music-competition landscape: even the youngest performers may already have overlapping histories across various platforms.

The series, which follows contestants from open casting calls to the selection of a debut lineup, does not claim — nor could it guarantee — that every participant arrives without experience.

Still, Cowell’s public message about “fresh talent” now sits alongside the acknowledgement that at least one member of his pool has traveled this route before.

Cowell’s longstanding influence over the reality-music genre provides further context for his stated goals with Simon Cowell: The Next Act.

Since 2001, he has appeared as a judge or producer on Pop Idol, American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent, America’s Got Talent, and The X Factor.

His acts — including One Direction, Leona Lewis, Little Mix, JLS, and Olly Murs — have collectively sold millions of records.

With the decline of The X Factor and shifting trends in how labels scout talent, Cowell has spoken of a gap he hopes to fill. He said,

“The amount of UK artists who are breaking worldwide has literally fallen off a cliff because I think there is too much competition online.”

Daniel Bretherton’s reappearance in Cowell’s pipeline does not change the trajectory of the series, nor the outcome for the contestants who reached the final rounds.

It simply illuminates the porous boundaries of modern talent discovery.

A rising performer may stand on more than one stage before reaching the threshold that Cowell describes as the “opportunity” to ascend.

Simon Cowell: The Next Act continues streaming on Netflix as audiences examine how the competition shapes its chosen group and how its message of finding “new talent” evolves in light of this discovery.

Stay tuned for more updates.