Simon Cowell was a little-known British music executive when he joined the judging panel of a 2002 summer replacement TV series to critique amateur singers. That show was “American Idol,” which partnered Cowell with pop star Paula Abdul and music producer Randy Jackson. Almost immediately, “Idol” became a pop-culture phenomenon and the biggest thing on television, a status the show upheld for well over a decade. It’s fair to say that the lion’s share of the show’s popularity can be credited to Cowell, the judge dubbed “Mr. Nasty” by the media for his ability to bring contestants to tears with his scathing (although not untrue) comments about their performances.
Cowell has been a ubiquitous figure on television since then, both in the U.S. and in his native U.K., where he’s brought his shtick to “The X Factor” and “Britain’s Got Talent.” While his attempt to bring “The X Factor” to American television ultimately flopped — despite the star power of a judging panel that included pop hitmaker Britney Spears — he’s had significantly more luck with “America’s Got Talent,” which recently celebrated its 19th season. In the process, Cowell has become fabulously wealthy, in addition to internationally famous.
Yet when the layers are peeled back, it becomes apparent that all that success and adulation has been accompanied by a significant degree of heartbreak. To find out more, keep on reading to discover some tragic details about Simon Cowell’s life that you never knew.
Simon Cowell worked at British music label EMI for several years before deciding to strike out on his own. He teamed up with his EMI boss, Ellis Rich, to form their own label, E&S Music. Cowell eventually exited that partnership, and in 1985 launched another, Fanfare Records. That business took off like a rocket, and its initial success propelled Cowell into the financial fast lane.
“Once I started to make some money, I bought a Porsche, bought a house,” Cowell explained in an interview with Fortune. That first flush of prosperity, however, did not last. Before long, the company’s financial situation had become precarious, leaving Cowell with the realization that if he didn’t shut it down he’d be facing bankruptcy. “By the time I was 28, I was broke and I had to go back and live with my parents,” he recalled.
Cowell rebounded by landing a job at BMG Records, working as an A&R consultant. This time, he heeded the tough lessons that he’d learned about trying to do too much too quickly. “I wanted everything to happen overnight,” he said of his initial approach. As it turned out, working within the larger label presented Cowell with opportunities to shine, starting him on the path toward the future success he would achieve.
Throughout his life, Simon Cowell maintained a close relationship with his parents, Eric and Julie. Tragically, Cowell’s father would not live to see the massive success and worldwide fame that his son would achieve. In 1999, Cowell was in a celebratory mood after one of his label signings, British group Westlife, charted their first No. 1 single. Cowell was in Germany at the time, attending a conference, when he learned his father had suffered a fatal heart attack. He immediately flew back to England.
“It was the longest trip home … That flight, it was bad,” Cowell recalled during an appearance on “The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett” podcast. “At that point in my life, I just believed my parents were gonna live forever,” he added. As Cowell pointed out, his father never got to witness the explosive success of “American Idol,” which took off just months later, and his son’s eventual television stardom.
In 2015, Cowell suffered another loss when his mother, Julie Brett, died at age 89. “When I lost my mum … it was the most devastating thing that ever happened in my life. It was as bad as things could possibly be,” Cowell observed during that podcast appearance. He noted that he and his parents had “the most amazing relationship” and losing both was incredibly difficult.
In February 2010, Simon Cowell had been dating makeup artist Mezhgan Hussainy for about six months when he decided to pop the question. “I think she’s the one,” Cowell declared while interviewed on British TV series “Life Stories” (via New York Post). “You know when you’ve found somebody very special.”
By the summer of 2011, however, Cowell ended the engagement. “Simon and Mezhgan split up in August,” a source told the Daily Mail. “He called it off and she wasn’t that surprised or even very bothered about it.” The following January, Cowell confirmed that report, revealing he hadn’t seen Hussainy since prior to Christmas. “It’s quite a complicated relationship,” he told The Mirror at the time. “We have had a break from each other, and we are still incredibly close.”
According to a report in The Sun, the breaking point came in April 2010, just a few months after the engagement, when Cowell’s late return home due to some “American Idol” production delays resulted in a massive blow-up. When he subsequently flew to London, Hussainy was not accompanying him. “I’ve made a big mistake,” Cowell reportedly told friends of getting engaged to Hussainy. Cowell was quick to accept a hefty portion of the blame for why things didn’t work out. “We came to the conclusion that I’m a hopeless boyfriend — and I don’t blame her,” he said.
The death of Simon Cowell’s mother in 2015 impacted him far more deeply than those who watched him on television would have ever realized. When interviewed on “The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett” podcast, Cowell revealed that losing his mother had left him distraught in a way he’d never experienced before.
That loss, heaped upon the earlier death of his father, was a major blow — made all the more difficult by the fact that he had to continue appearing on television and put on a brave face. “I felt like a clown because I’m dying inside, and yet I’ve still got to do what I’m being paid to do as best as I could,” he said on the podcast (via Australia’s News.com). He began to sink into a deep depression, which manifested itself in his physical appearance. “I’d put on a ton of weight, I was eating junk,” he said, recalling he’d begun to take on the schedule of a “vampire,” staying awake until the early morning and then sleeping until the afternoon.
Meanwhile, he couldn’t ignore the irony that, from a professional standpoint, he was at the top of the world, enjoying a level of fame and wealth he never could have imagined. Yet he was so entrenched in despair that he couldn’t appreciate it, let alone enjoy it. “I was very successful, but I wasn’t happy,” he mused. “I really, really wasn’t happy.”
If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
Still reeling from his mother’s death, TV talent judge Simon Cowell endured another unforeseen setback when a burglar robbed his London mansion. According to the Daily Mail, the thief stole cash and jewelry from a safe; a neighborhood security guard witnessed the criminal’s exit, leading one of the thieves to drop Cowell’s passport, while the guard was able to retrieve a bag of stolen goods said to be worth more than $600,000. Cowell reportedly fired his own security guard after finding out he was on the loo at the time of the crime.
The most surprising aspect of the robbery, Cowell told the Mail, was that his trio of Yorkshire terriers — Freddie, Squiddly, and Diddly — remained silent throughout the incident. “Usually Squiddly, Diddly and Freddie never stop barking — but this is the first time they didn’t make a sound,” Cowell said, revealing he’d brought in some other dogs that would bark. “The most frightening thing is someone has been in your house,” he remarked about the terrifying invasion of privacy he’d experienced, sharing a belief that the intruder may have had some inside knowledge of his home.
The burglar, Darren February, was eventually apprehended and placed on trial. In 2017, he was convicted, and sentenced to eight years in prison. At the time, he was already imprisoned, convicted of killing a motorcyclist with his car, days after robbing Cowell. As BBC News reported, February had 37 previous burglary convictions.
In 2020, Simon Cowell was chilling out at his home in Malibu when he decided to take his brand-new electric bike for a spin in the home’s courtyard. While tooling around, he somehow had an accident that led him to fall off the bike, breaking his back in the process. The injury was severe; the New York Daily News reported he required a six-hour surgical procedure that included inserting a metal rod in his spine. Cowell managed to keep his spirits high, judging from a tweet he issued shortly after the accident. “Some good advice…” he wrote. “If you buy an electric trail bike, read the manual before you ride it for the first time.”
In an interview the following year, after he’d recovered, Cowell admitted that he’d been lucky. “It could have been a lot worse. When I saw the X-ray, I really nearly smashed my spine to pieces, so I literally wouldn’t [have] been able to walk,” he told “Extra.”
Looking back on the accident in 2023, Cowell told NBC’s “Today” that his injury came as a major wakeup call, forcing him to realize how unfit he’d allowed himself to become. “It was painful, it wasn’t great,” he admitted. Despite suffering such a massive injury, Cowell was adamant about continuing to ride his bicycle. “I’m still gonna stay on my bike,” he declared. “I’m obsessed with these things.”
As he promised, Simon Cowell did indeed continue riding his electric bicycle. Not unexpectedly, Cowell wound up getting in another accident. This time, he was cycling in London in February 2022, when he reportedly skidded on some wet pavement. “He went flying over the handlebars into the middle of the road and is lucky to be alive as he wasn’t wearing a helmet. There was blood pouring from his face,” a source told The Mirror. He was taken to a hospital, with X-rays revealing he’d broken his arm. “I’m a bit of a nutter,” Cowell subsequently told The Mirror. “I’ll definitely wear a helmet next time.”
After he’d mostly healed up, Cowell opened up about his broken arm during a red-carpet interview with “Access Hollywood.” “It was a stupid accident. It was just annoying, mainly because I couldn’t ride my bike,” he complained, noting that the large cast on his arm prevented him from getting back on his wheels.
As Cowell recalled in that interview, his second bike-related injury wasn’t nearly as serious as the first; once again, he’d managed to narrowly avoid a severe injury that could have laid him out for a lot longer. “I mean, I broke it pretty bad; however, it’s healed. I didn’t have to have an operation,” Cowell explained. “I was lucky, ’cause I nearly snapped the ligament. If you snap ligaments, then that’s bad.”
Simon Cowell has come to know hundreds of performers over the course of his years as a judge on various TV talent competitions. Sadly, he’s also experienced the tragic deaths of some of these talented people. “Unfortunately, it happens too much over the years,” Cowell admitted in an interview with People. “Every time it happens, because you’ve gotten to know them, it’s horrible.”
As Cowell pointed out, 2022 had been a particularly difficult year in that regard, due to the deaths of two “America’s Got Talent” fan favorites: singers Nolan Neal, who died after a long struggle with substance abuse, and Nightbirde (whose real name was Jane Marczewski), who passed away that February from cancer. Cowell had made no secret of his admiration for her talent, even giving her his Golden Buzzer. “There was something really special about Jane, I adored her,” Cowell said of Marczewski after her death, as reported by OK!
The previous year, he paid tribute to Carlos Marin, a founding member of Il Divo, the “popera” act that Cowell launched. “I am finding this so difficult to put into words how I feel right now,” Cowell wrote on Facebook. “I am devastated Carlos Marin has passed away.”
Simon credits his son Eric for pulling him out of a ‘downward spiral’
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Coping with the 2015 death of his mother proved intensely difficult for Simon Cowell, leading to feelings of hopelessness and dark depression. “I was on a downward spiral at that point,” Cowell recalled during his 2024 appearance on “The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett” podcast (via CNN). He initially felt he’d overcome those feelings by throwing himself into his work, yet that strategy didn’t work for him. “And it was, ‘I’m just going to be a ridiculous workaholic,’ and I was very successful but I wasn’t happy, I really, really wasn’t happy,” he recalled.
Prior to his mother’s death, however, Cowell had become a father; Eric, his son with Lauren Silverman, arrived in February 2014. As Cowell explained, his infant son was responsible for lifting him out of his depression and giving him the emotional fortitude to keep moving forward. “I really, really had reached the point where nothing mattered,” Cowell said of that dark time. “Even to the point that I almost can’t remember everything from that period.”
Asked if his son “saved him” during that difficult time, Cowell responded, “Without question.” In fact, he insisted that Eric’s presence in his life changed everything for him. “It made me happy again,” he declared on the podcast.
During the years since welcoming son Eric, Simon Cowell has proven to be a doting dad; fatherhood has clearly agreed with him. That said, Cowell has also admitted he harbors some fears about his son’s future. “There are two things that worry me about him growing up,” he explained when interviewed by the Daily Mail. “One is stress. Children are under so much stress — with homework, pressure. I really don’t want that for him,” he added. “The second thing is bullying. It terrifies me. If there’s even a whiff of it … I don’t think I could handle it.”
That fear, he pointed out, was one key reason he didn’t name his son Simon Cowell Jr., a moniker that would have certainly increased the likelihood that he’d be targeted by bullies at some point. Instead, he and Eric’s mother, Lauren Silverman, decided it would be better to name him after Cowell’s late father instead. “It would have been too much to inflict Simon on him,” Cowell quipped.
Given the positive impact that fatherhood has had on him, would Cowell consider having a second child? As he told The Sun in 2023, he’d recently been thinking about that very question, recalling how much he enjoyed his son’s earliest years. “So look, will it happen? I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I would love another kid. I really like being a dad.”
In late 2022, a post began making the rounds on social media that shocked Simon Cowell’s fans: a photo of former U.S. president Bill Clinton standing before an open casket, with a photo of Simon Cowell propped next to it. “We announce very sad news about Simon Cowell, he has been confirmed as…,” read that photo’s caption, compelling those who saw it to click the link to learn more about what was presumably Cowell’s unexpected death.
As rumor-squashing website Snopes.com confirmed, that post was bogus, with those clicking the link led to sketchy websites urging them to install dangerous malware on their computers. The photo had been faked, with Cowell’s face added to what was originally a photo of Clinton attending the funeral of baseball legend Hank Aaron.
That wasn’t the first time that Cowell had been at the center of an internet death hoax. Back in 2015, Snopes.com shot down a fake video that had been circulating online, in which a contestant on “Britain’s Got Talent” was on the receiving end of Cowell’s caustic, cutting critique, and then walked backstage and shot himself. “The video clip is an obvious fake, stitched together from Cowell’s criticism of one contestant and a shot of the judges’ shocked reaction to a completely different contestant, with an overdubbed gunshot sound added for effect,” the site pointed out.
