thisisLondon
By John Arlidge, Evening Standard
22 August 2005
The £300,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom stands proudly on the drive of the £7.5 million west London home. Sitting on the terrace overlooking the Japanese garden, Simon Cowell reviews plans for his new £20million house in Beverly Hills and discusses with girlfriend Terri Seymour whether they should spend Christmas in Barbados or Aspen.
Cowell's mobile rings every few minutes. Sometimes it's his mother, Julie, calling from her home in Brighton to tick him off for being too rude during the first episode of the new series of The X Factor (The ITV show attracted 6.6 million viewers - 40 per cent of the audience - on Saturday night.) Sometimes, it's a US TV network, asking whether he is ready to accept a $25 million offer to host his own chat show.
With another hit show under his belt and lucrative offers from Hollywood, Cowell has every reason to smile. So it is unusual to hear him dismiss the X-Factor as "culturally insane" and his own talents "crap", then saying his career is "one bad move away from being totally f*****".
The man who has built an £80 million fortune on supreme self-confidence and memorable put-downs has a pretty good line in self-deprecation. "It's a good thing I'm back in London," he smiles. "When I'm filming American Idol (the US version of Pop Idol) in Los Angeles, I get sucked into all the showbiz nonsense. Over there, you can easily believe that you are bigger than the show. I come back here to make sure I stay grounded."
Cowell, 45, is sipping tea with Terri by his side. The couple live for six months of the year in Los Angeles when Cowell is filming American Idol and spend the other six months in London. Wearing his trademark Armani jeans, T-shirt and unfeasibly pointy hand-made Berluti boots, Cowell is keen to play down the impact of the new series of The X Factor.
"If you read the papers, you'd think it was a matter of life or death, but, the truth is, it's a mad talent show. That's all. Can you imagine if a tape of the show were buried in a time capsule? When people dug it up and watched it they'd think everyone in Britain in 2005 was afflicted by mass dementia. I mean, a 51-year-old cattle farmer, called Justin, dressing up in drag, calling himself Justine, and trying to pass himself off as Dusty Springfield on TV? It's insane."
Five years after he snarled his way into popular culture as the acerbic judge on Pop Idol, Cowell is having the mother of all reality checks. He fears he is about to get caught up in the show's hype. "The fun of The X Factor is seeing thousands of people turning up believing they are good at something then making complete fools of themselves because they are, in fact, total crap. I love it but I am not about to make the same mistake myself."
Cowell's problem - if you can call it that - lies 10,000 miles away from his Holland Park home. It's those Hollywood producers who keep calling him. American Idol is the top-rated show in the US and Cowell is farbetter known in America than he is here. The result is that he's getting offers that look too good to turn down.
"If you are in a show that is successful in America, everybody loves you. I get these offers all the time which are so tempting but I have to keep reminding myself that I would be rubbish at all of them and, if I did them, I'd make a complete arse of myself and my career would be over."
Cowell has been offered the chance to host his own chat show by all the big US networks. One network offered him $25 million to do whatever he wanted, in any hour on the schedule. "I could have dressed up in women's clothing and cavorted with barnyard animals and they would have said: 'Great. We love it.'"
Big firms, from banks to doughnut chains, pester him to endorse products. He has made an ad for Coca-Cola, with mob movie actor Chazz Palminteri for a rumoured £1 million, but from now on, Cowell is saying "No" to all but his own projects. "I want to walk away from all the showbusiness crazies before I become vain. I'm not doing any more ads because I don't want to turn into Sue Barker. I'd be a rubbish talk show host because I can't remember any lines and I've never been able to read an autocue. I'm OK on talent shows but if you watch closely, I don't say an awful lot."
Girlfriend Terri has left the terrace now and is getting ready to go out shopping at Selfridges. On his own, Cowell talks freely about how he doesn't want to get married. "I don't see the point of it." He doesn't want to have children. "That's not for me - which probably makes me quite sad but that is just the way my make-up is." He doesn't want to write a book or retire to enjoy his wealth.
He is happiest sitting at his desk at his company, Syco Music, in Fulham, coming up with the next big idea. He's already working on a football format and a new talent show for ITV called Paul O'Grady's Got Talent. The programme, which pilots next month, is an old-fashioned variety show, hosted by Lily Savage actor O'Grady.
Next year, Cowell starts filming a new talent show for US network, ABC, to find the best amateur inventor in America. The winner will receive a £1 million contract to produce their invention - with Cowell, as he does on the X-Factor, taking a 50 per cent share of any profits.
After that, comes a big leap. His first movies. As he lights a cigarette and opens a can of Coke - "I live off the stuff " - he says: "I have two films which will be screened late next year.
We are working on the scripts now. They are both musicbased. One is very low budget. One is very big budget. One is set here. The other in America."
He won't say more about the films but insists they are "in my music talent show comfort zone".
Making them reminds him of doing the first series of American Idol. "It was an adventure in a new country for me. Now, I'm doing it again. I'm just beginning my education in film, just beginning to learn the business as I go along. I came into it so late. I have, hopefully, another 15 years to go. I want to be very, very good in the future."
Most people would consider a 40 per cent TV audience-share at prime time on Saturday night in Britain and America to be not half bad. Cowell grins: "But the thrill of going to your own movie premiere. Now that would be good."
A starring role at his own film premiere? Isn't that a little vain? Could the movies turn out to be the downfall he is trying so hard to avoid?
"If they work, grand. If they are a total disaster, I'll do the only decent thing." Which is? "Run away and hide."
The X-it Factor? Now, that really would be worth watching.
