Simon Cowell has been credited with launching hit British reality TV shows like The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. Photo / Getty Images
Simon Cowell has been credited with launching hit British reality TV shows like The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. Photo / Getty Images
Reality television guru Simon Cowell, 63, has revealed how becoming a dad saved him from a "dark" obsession with work, while opening up about his rebellious childhood.
Credited with founding highly successful shows like Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor, as well as pioneering the careers of Harry Styles, Susan Boyle, Leona Lewis and launching bands like Fifth Harmony, One Direction and Little Mix, Cowell admitted he was "obsessed" with work.
"If Eric hadn't come along, God knows what would have happened," he told The Sun.
Cowell said he suffered crippling lows when ratings for the UK X Factor began to slump. The reality TV show later ended in 2018.
"I'm not a wall puncher but I'd tear my hair out, then be sitting there at 4am saying, 'What am I going to do?' Coming up with ridiculous ideas like the six-chair challenge."
He also admitted that without his 8-year-old son Eric — his child with fiancee Lauren Silverman, 45 — he might still be trapped in a toxic cycle of misery.
Simon Cowell with his fiance Lauren Silverman and son, Eric Cowell. Photo / Getty Images
"Before Eric, my life was 99 per cent work — I was obsessed with it.
"I got to that point where everything was about, 'If you're not rating against this then you're a failure,' and I stopped enjoying what I was doing and I was miserable the whole time.
"I was obsessed with beating the competition. I took it to a ridiculous level and I would get really down about that stuff, to the point I was depressed."
Health turnaround after horror smash
Cowell also spoke about how a horror cycle crash in 2020 made him re-evaluate his relationship with health and fitness.
The music mogul was riding an electric bike in Malibu, California when he fell and was rushed to hospital with a broken back. Although his six-hour surgery was successful, he said the accident was a wake-up call.
"Weirdly when I broke my back, it was like it was meant to happen — because I realised in my recovery that I was not as fit as I thought I was," he told the publication.
"I didn't realise that I actually hadn't walked for 20 years.
"And so while it was bad when it happened, I feel better now than I did before the crash."
I was drinking and smoking at 8
Cowell also spoke about his rebellious younger years, including the time he "hijacked a bus with a pea gun" at just 12 years old.
Speaking to The Sun, Cowell said he had begun drinking and smoking at 8, and described himself as "a nightmare".
"I thought it wouldn't be taken seriously, but the driver called the police and I was arrested. I remember going back home and my mum being furious," he said.
"She was the disciplinarian, my dad was always the softer one.
"He said so many things that stuck with me, but I can't remember him ever raising his voice to me."
Cowell admitted that while he was "smart," he wasn't academic and was easily bored.
"I was so bad, slightly living on the edge," he said.
"So it was school after school, and then I was out at 16."
I'm a very different man
Reflecting on the past few years, Cowell told The Sun that he's now a changed man. It's a transformation he largely attributes to having become a parent.
"Eric changed everything, to be honest. After I lost my mum and my dad, you kind of think you're never going to feel that love again — that's it," he said.
