London, Sep 12 (ANI): X factor judge Simon Cowell fears that Britney Spears' career may be finished, thanks to her disastrous comeback at the MTV Video Music Awards recently.

Cowell ripped into Britney's performance left, right and centre, and added that had he been supervising the pop star, he would have never allowed her to perform on stage.

"If I had been looking after Britney I'd have taken one look at her in rehearsals and I wouldn't have allowed her on stage. It would have been worth pulling her off the bill - no matter what the cost - to save any chance she had of resurrecting her career," The Sun quoted him, as saying.

"She wasn't ready for that show in every possible way. The song wasn't right, the image wasn't right and she just wasn't rehearsed," he added.

Cowell, who has made his fortune from guiding the careers of pop singers, further gnarled that he would have definitely thrown the 'Toxic' singer out if her performance had been an audition for his ITV1 show.

"If she had turned up and given that performance at the X Factor auditions then I wouldn't have put her through to the next round," he said.

"The problem she has now is that she could have killed her career. It's difficult to come back from that performance, for a while at least," he added.

Britney's live performance of her new song 'Gimme More' on Sep 9 has been panned thoroughly. (ANI)