Ant and Dec threatened to quit Britain's Got Talent in behind-the-scenes row

Ant and Dec have disclosed their intentions to quit Britain's Got Talent, citing they were "not having a nice time", only for Simon Cowell to urge them to remain.

The turning point occurred in 2012 when the Geordie pair expressed dissatisfaction with their limited screen time and Cowell's habitual tardiness to auditions.

In response, they jetted off to America, prepared to resign. However, Cowell heeded their concerns and earnestly "pleaded" for them to stay.

Discussing Cowell on the Stick To Football podcast, Ant remarked: "He's a really charming bloke with a great sense of humour. He's funny, generous and we get on well with him. We've always kind of had a good relationship with him because we're quite honest with him and I think he appreciates that. He asks our opinion and trusts our opinion, and I think he respects the fact that we've been doing it for as long as we have.

"We've been annoyed at him a few times over the years. We went to LA to see him to tell him we were going to leave Britain's Got Talent because we weren't having a very nice time. He was always late it was gone through his period where he would just never turn up on time,"

Dec continued: "We were in the show less and less it's a taking up a lot of our time we're not really in the show we might as well leave and put our energies elsewhere. He went 'oh well no you can't leave and I'll turn up on time, and we'll make sure that you're featured more and that you'll have more fun with it.

"So we sat there having lunch and he went 'I can't believe you were thinking of leaving' and he leaned over in the restaurant in the middle of LA and started tickling me going 'you will never leave me'."

Whilst the presenting duo have previously mentioned their Britain's Got Talent disagreement with Cowell, they hadn't revealed the extent of his appeals to keep them on board.

In their 2020 memoir, Dec noted: "It felt like it may as well have been anyone hosting the show."

Ant elaborated: "We let him have it with both barrels. We told him everything - that we weren't being used, that we could be doing other stuff, that maybe someone else should take over.

"To be fair to Simon, he sat there, took it all and listened intently for four, maybe five cigarettes."

Dec added: "He made a promise to us: That things would change and that we'd never feel like that again.

"He desperately wanted us to stay and we told him we'd do the next series and see how it went - and, to be fair to him, he was as good as his word, things did change."

Britain's Got Talent returns to ITV1 soon