Britain's Got Talent bosses "begged" Piers Morgan to return to the helm of the show to replace Simon Cowell.
But he says he turned down the job as he could not do the show without Simon, who was forced to miss this year's series due to breaking his back in an accident.
Simon crashed his electric bike near his home in California and broke three vertebrae, needed a steel rod inserted into his back.
Piers judged Britain's Got Talent from 2007-2010, before moving to the American version of the show.
He told OK! : "I was approached several times to go back to Britain's Got Talent when Simon Cowell got injured.
"That would have been quite fun, but I'd rather do it with him.
"He and I had a great chemistry and it would have been quite a fun one to go back in and have a laugh with Simon, but he'd have to be involved."
Instead, Simon was replaced by Ashley Banjo, whose dance troupe Diversity won the show back in 2009.
Meanwhile, Amanda Holden became head judge alongside Alesha Dixon and David Walliams, who has a long-standing feud with Piers.
Piers once said David "makes his skin crawl" and claimed the show's ratings dropped when he was replaced by David, tweeting: "Amusing that @davidwalliams regularly ‘likes’ the nastiest tweets about me, yet is such a snivelling toady to my face."
"It’s not my fault @BGT ratings were so much higher when I was in your chair Dave!"
David's comedy partner Matt Lucas stepped in to defend him, writing to Piers: "Purely objectively - 1) He was probably being polite. Some people are.
"2) Boasting about the BGT ratings and popularity when you were briefly on it to someone who has not only transformed the show but is consistently the biggest-selling author in the country didn't work."
Piers responded: "Hi Matt, I don’t think it’s ‘polite’ to be friendly to people in person but poisonous behind their back - it’s cowardly.
"As for BGT, I was very proudly on it for the first 4 years when ratings topped 20 million.
"They’re now half that. Not a boast, just a fact."
