Simon says: Uncovering the mystery behind Simon Cowell

It may have been a bad week for Simon Cowell, but is the reason for all his troubles the very arrogance that made him one of the biggest stars on TV, asks Stephen McGinty

ON Wednesday afternoon Simon Cowell faced a rigorous interrogation by a band of surprisingly diminutive journalists. As the pop svengali and saviour of Saturday night light entertainment sat amid the primary colours of the Shooting Star Chase children’s hospice in Guildford he could relax, safe in the knowledge that no-one was going to quiz him on the colour of his toilet paper and the extent of his nocturnal activities with Dannii Minogue. For the press pack comprised a delighted group of seriously ill children, all intent on getting the latest scoop on Britain’s Got Talent from their “Uncle Simon”.

Cowell has been a patron of the charity for more than a decade. The visit, which had long been pencilled into his diary, came in the middle of a fraught week. On the journey back to London he learned that the Daily Mirror planned to report that he was in “torment” and enduring “the worst week of his life”. But as Cowell sat back into the leather seats of the Rolls Royce Ghost, he said: “How can I get too upset about this when we’ve just spent two hours with little ones that won’t be here in a year’s time?”

Yet, while the past seven days may not be the worst, they have been far from the best in the career of the multi-millionaire behind Britain’s Got Talent and American Idol. First, for an alpha male obsessed with crushing the opposition, he was forced to make the humiliating decision to move Britain’s Got Talent to a later slot after repeated head-to-head clashes with the BBC’s new talent show, The Voice, made him the ratings loser. It was a seismic shift in the broadcasting landscape as viewers opted for the fresh-faced optimism of the singer Jessie J to the relentless negativity and arrogance of Simon Cowell.

Then there was that book. In a spectacular misjudgment Cowell, who had made a habit of screening his private life and relationships from the press as much as possible, took the decision to open up to a biographer. The fact that the author was none other than Tom Bower, a veteran investigative reporter whose bookshelf, like a hunter’s wall, holds the figuratively decapitated heads of subjects such as Robert Maxwell, Geoffrey Robertson, Gordon Brown and Richard Branson (whose cover photograph had eyes tinted black as if to emphasise “Satanic” ways) made the decision even more surprising. Yet instead of listening to the advice of Max Clifford, his PR adviser for the past 15 years, and issuing a polite “no comment”, Cowell invited Bower on to his yacht and private plane and sat for 200 hours of access and interviews. The result was only too predictable – serialisation of the book in the Sun, who paid £100,000 for the rights, revealing that Cowell had an affair with Dannii Minogue, whom he viewed as a new toy, that he “lusted” after Cheryl Cole, and that his engagement to Mezhgan Hussainy, his former make-up girl on American Idol, was “a mistake”. In an embarrassment for ITV, Cowell dismissed Gary Barlow, the chief judge on The X Factor, as “too stiff” and “too scripted” and hinted that he might not return. ITV, however, rushed out a statement this week saying that the Take That star had been signed up for another series.

So, how did it come to this? Well, according to Clifford, his client simply didn’t listen to reason. As Mr Clifford yesterday explained to The Scotsman, Cowell did not listen to him but instead took the advice of Bernie Ecclestone, the billionaire behind Formula 1 who was himself the subject of a less-than-flattering biography by Bower.

Clifford said: “I told him at the time: ‘No-one speaks to Tom Bower because if they do it will come back and bite them on the bum’. Then Bernie Ecclestone spoke to him and said, ‘If I was you, Simon, I would talk to him, get to know him and he will probably write a nicer kind of book if you do’. My advice was still the same. It was like Colonel Saunders saying to a chicken: trust me. You just do not do it.

“The big disadvantage is that Simon has always been a very private person. Simon Cowell never does interviews about his private life, his romances, I know this because for ten years I have made sure of it. I have stopped a thousand people who have tried to do stories on him. Still, he did what he did and now he wishes he hadn’t. He made a situation a lot worse.”

Does he regret it? “Yes. As he said to his mum last night: ‘I just wish I had listened’.”

There are those in the television industry who fear that this week could be the tipping point in Cowell’s career as the nation’s favourite “villain”. According to Lisa Campbell, editor of Broadcast magazine, a few months ago Cowell felt that the public was tiring of his arrogance and took steps to address the matter with a number of interviews in the Sun. She said: “He was trying to turn that around with stories in the Sun, with whom he has a close relationship, all about ‘No more Mr Arrogant.’ He was going to be the Nice Guy now.”

The arrogance, which has given him incredible success in both Britain and the United States, may have led Cowell to believe that he could manipulate Bower into writing the type of book he would wish to read. However, despite how uncomfortable he feels about the private revelations in the book, his biggest concern will be about the success of The Voice.

Campbell said: “Simon Cowell is hugely competitive. He will not be sitting there, saying: ‘It’s great. There is another talent show in the market and there is room for all of us.’ He will want to be the biggest and best entertainment show on television. He is working extremely hard behind the scenes. He is a hands-on producer and he will be doing everything in his power to make sure it retains its position.

“He will be quite concerned about The X Factor. In the longer terms the question is: will The Voice become the singing show and the nation’s favourite? Will it usurp The X Factor, I am sure that is a massive concern and they will be working very hard to make sure it comes back bigger and better.”

Campbell believes Cowell may even try to poach Jessie J for The X Factor. “I would not put anything past him. He will do whatever it takes, even poaching the best talent from another show, and he will do what he can to undermine the competition. That is the name of the game.”