X Factor judge Simon Cowell has said that Britney Spears would have been shown the door at auditions on the talent show if she repeated her performance at Sunday's MTV video music awards.
The blunt talent spotter told The Sun newspaper that the Baby One More Time star, who has recorded five albums, should never have been allowed to perform at the event. He also warned that Spears had jeopardised her career by performing her new single Gimme More at the ceremony.
The 48-year-old, who has reduced many X Factor contestants to tears, said: "If she [Britney Spears] had turned up and given that performance at the X Factor auditions then I wouldn’t have put her through to the next round.
"The problem she has now is that she could have killed her career. It’s difficult to come back from that performance, for a while at least."
He also told the paper that the star should have cancelled her performance in the interest of her career.
"It would have been worth pulling her off the bill - no matter what the cost - to save any chance she had of resurrecting her career.
"She wasn’t ready for that show in every possible way.
"The song wasn’t right, the image wasn’t right and she just wasn’t rehearsed," he added.
Spears, whose latest album will be released in November, has been panned by critics for what has been described as a "zombie-like" performance, which served as the opening act at the MTV show.
Fellow judge Louis Walsh also criticised the former pop princess saying: "Britney wouldn’t make it through one audition of X Factor because she can’t sing live."
Yesterday, Kanye West alleged that Spears had been exploited by MTV and that she performed even though she was not ready. 
