Louis Walsh will be a judge on 'Ireland's Got Talent'.

Louis Walsh

Louis Walsh

The 65-year-old music manager - who was born in County Mayo - expressed his desire to do an Irish version of Simon Cowell's hit show 'Britain's Got Talent' back in 2015 and, after two years of planning, the programme will finally debut at the beginning of next year with him and Michelle Visage on the judging panel.

Speaking on 'This Morning' on Wednesday (30.08.17), Louis said: "'Ireland's Got Talent', yeah, it's starting! Nobody knows this yet. It's starting on TV3 in Ireland. It's me and Michelle Visage - she's fantastic. It's going to be on TV in January."

Not much else is known about the show but rumour has it that Louis was offered a staggering €200,000 (£185,000) in a last-minute attempt to get him on board.

A source told The Irish Herald newspaper previously: "TV3 is desperate to get a big name on board for the first series of the show. It wants to make a big impact with the new programme. Louis has the space in his schedule to do it but, as everyone knows, he doesn't come cheap and it's unclear if the broadcaster has the budget to afford him. Having said that, it is very keen to make the new show a success and prove that it can pull in the big-name stars for it."

Meanwhile, now that he's landed the gig on 'IGT', Louis' schedule looks somewhat jam packed as he's also been filming for the new series of 'The X Factor'.

He explained: "Honestly, I love doing the job and every year we have a new set of people and I can't wait to get started. I love working with these people, I love working with [the other judges] Simon, Sharon [Osbourne] and Nicole [Scherzinger] - I can't wait to go in every day. I care about them. We're all back [on the panel for a second year running] because it works, we've got good chemistry. We're the best panel."

And Louis thinks the judging panel works so well because they all offer something different with their talent and experience and they're able to have fun with each other.

He said: "We're honest with each other and we have fun. We have an artist in Nicole, we have a manager, Simon from the record label; we all bring different things."

Tagged in