Waterman: 'Geri put me off reality TV shows'

Pete Waterman says Geri Halliwell ended his reality TV judging career.

The songwriter worked on 'Popstars: The Rivals' alongside Geri and 'X Factor' judge Louis Walsh but Pete cites Geri's strange behaviour, including bringing a dog on set, as one of the main reasons he decided to bow out of judging reality TV shows.

He explained: ''When she came in and put the dog on her lap, I thought 'What am I actually doing here?'

''In our contract with ITV there were all these rules about what you could and couldn't do on screen. One of them, I always thought, was that no animals were allowed. So all the TV executives were freaking out about there being a dog in the studio.''

Pete - who turned down lucrative offers to judge 'The X Factor' and 'Britain's Got Talent' - thinks Geri's strange behaviour was caused by her pop career.

He added to the Daily Mail newspaper: ''I didn't have a problem with her as a person. She was just a little bit wild. Well maybe wild is not the right word. She'd just been in the Spice Girls, which must have been a surreal experience. You think, 'Hang on, this girl's not in the real world. She's lost all touch with reality. She's got a completely different view of the world to anybody I know.' That's what happens with pop stars sometimes.''