Fern Britton was originally cast to star on the judging panel on Britain's Got Talent - but was later binned as bosses went for Amanda Holden instead.
This Morning presenter Fern, 63, was replaced by the Heart radio presenter before the hit talent show came to fruition on ITV.
Speaking to Metro, BGT commissioner Claudia Rosencrantz explained her thought process behind casting certain celebs to be judges on the show.
To help her decide, Claudia had the initial judges cast film a pilot episode that was never aired, to give her a better understanding of what each judge can bring to the table.
She explained: "I had Fern Britton on the panel, the original pilot we did.
"She laughs so much, and she’s a great laugher. And when Fern laughs she literally just cries and I like that, it made me laugh."
But despite liking Fern's laugh so much, Claudia decided to go in another direction and offered the gig to Amanda.
Claudia admitted that bosses weren't initially keen on the idea of BGT, prompting her to advise Simon Cowell to pitch the show in America - and rightly so, as NBC snapped it up and created America's Got Talent.
Eventually, ITV bosses had to revisit their poor judgement and bring the show back to the UK in 2007.
Only this time Fern was nowhere to be found as Amanda was sitting beside judges Simon and Piers Morgan.
Reflecting on how far the show’s come, Claudia added: "If you look at all the iterations of the singing shows…there have been no iterations of multi-talent shows.
"There’s just been Got Talent, which is still very strong."
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