Simon Cowell
Simon Cowell
Simon Phillip Cowell is an English reality television judge, entrepreneur, philanthropist, film, record, and television producer. He is most recognized as a judge on the British TV talent competition series Pop Idol, The X Factor, and Britain's Got Talent, and the American TV talent competition shows American Idol, The X Factor, and America's Got Talent. Cowell owns the television production and music publishing house Syco...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth7 October 1959
CityLondon, England
I look at him [son Eric] and I think of my dad all the time.... I was born to be a dad.
My dad wasn't someone who was a great disciplinarian, we had a fun relationship, but he gave me really constructive advice in my life, which I still carry today and I do pass on to other people. So if I can have the same relationship with my son as I had with my dad, then I think he'll be very happy and I'll be very happy.
My dad said to me, 'Work hard and be patient.' It was the best advice he ever gave me. You have to put the hours in.
On one level, going bust didn't bother me. It was the 80s, and there wasn't the stigma about bankruptcy that you might think. My mates weren't bothered. My dad was in business.. he knew that it happened, too. He loaned me the money to bail me out, and I got a loan from the bank to pay him back.
My dad did teach me a very important lesson about people when he explained to me that everybody around you will have an invisible sign on their head, which says, "Make me feel important."
I have very good advice to give to kids this age, which is, you shouldn't listen to your mum or dad and you just have to work it out for yourself. And the reason I've taken the age range down this year, and I never would have done it 10 years ago, is what I've seen with the success of Willow Smith. You don't have to be so cutesy anymore.
I like the fact that they're cocky now from the age of four.
It was just an off moment. Their argument was he was entertaining. People like that - we can always deal with them later.
These two will never put you through to the final group.
I'm absolutely gob-smacked. I never, in a million, billion years thought that you were going to sing like that. You could sell a lot of records and you have the look of Ronan Keating. You could be very special.
No, I probably owed the bank about a million dollars then, yeah.
It was a nightmare that would have Barry Manilow screaming in horror.
This was the only performance which stands up in the real world -- tonight you were the standard.
Creed would not be caught dead on this show. You've got to start showing, at this point, another side. You can't keep doing this week after week after week.