JEDWARD HAVE HIT back at their former manager Louis Walsh after the Mayo man referred to the twins as “vile” on live television.

Walsh is a contestant in the current series of Celebrity Big Brother, which premiered last week on ITV and Virgin Media Ireland. His fellow contestant, Coronation Street actor Colson Smith, asked Walsh about Jedward in a conversation that was aired on Tuesday night.

The 71-year-old Mayo man told Smith that “they were vile, but they were great for the [X Factor] show”. Walsh went on to say that he “got five million quid for them”.

Jedward, the Irish pop duo made up of identical twin brothers John and Edwards Grimes, first came to fame as contestants on the 2009 season of The X Factor, where they were coached by Walsh.

Eventually, the pair were eliminated from the show before the final, but went on to be managed by Walsh and released three albums as part of a deal with Universal Music International between 2010 and 2012. During that same period, Jedward were twice selected to be Ireland’s contestant at the Eurovision Song Contest, competing in 2011 and 2012 – finishing in a creditable 8th place in the contest’s final following their first appearance.

For their part, Jedward were watching the show live alongside reality TV star Gemma Collins, who broadcast a reaction from the pair, who were over at her house for a roast dinner. 

“You’re like a cat with nine lives,” one of the twins said into the camera, while the other stuck up both middle fingers. “How many times can you slag off your own acts? Girls Aloud, BoyZone, Ronan Keating. It’s absolutely a disgrace.”

They said he did nothing for them and that Simon Cowell made him. 

Collins herself chipped in, saying that Jedward were “not vile, they are beautiful in every single way”. 

In addition to the video posted by Collins on her Instagram account, the pair tweeted how Walsh failed to send flowers to them when their mother Susanna Condron died of cancer in 2019. It was Susanna who had taken over management duties when the pair split from Walsh six years earlier. 

Jedward also wrote that Louis was the one who “reopened these wounds all by himself being spiteful and disrespectful”.

This is not the first time that either party has been at the other’s neck. In a 2016 interview with Women’s Own magazine, Louis Walsh said the most embarrassing moment of his career was “working with Jedward and putting them through on The X Factor”.

The twins, who were 25-year-old at the time, responded robustly. ”I think we are the most financially beneficial act of his career in the last 10 years,” Edward said in response during an appearance on Living With Lucy on Virgin Media.

“I don’t think he took us under his wing,” John added. “I think we were already flying and he was like, ‘Oh I think I want a part of that.’”

Jedward have not released an album since 2019, but have been involved in many social campaigns over the past few years. The pair were a prominent voice in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020 following the death of George Floyd, attending rallies in California where they were living with US actress Tara Reid.