Cowell Simon - Sweet revenge: the intimate life of Simon Cowell

Copyright 2012 by Novasbooks Ltd.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B ALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53395-1

www.ballantinebooks.com

Jacket design: Daniel Rembert
Jacket photograph: RD / Orchon /Retna Ltd./Corbis

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HE WHO SEEKS REVENGE
SHOULD REMEMBER TO DIG TWO GRAVES.
proverb

MARVIN GAYES AINT NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH WAS BLARING across the dark Mediterranean. Simon Cowell pulled on his Kool cigarette. Today was an eye-opener, he said, gritting and swigging a freezing Sapporo beer. Im disappointed.

At 2:30 A.M. on August 5, 2011, Cowell had returned to Slipstream, his 193-foot chartered yacht, from Boli, a brash restaurant in Canness harbor. I hate this place, Cowell had told his friends. Getting in was trouble. I expected an elbow in my eye. Offensive doormen had temporarily blocked his entrance after failing to recognize their famous guest.

After eating only a single course, Cowell unexpectedly rose and declared, Lets go. His exit was delayed by a dozen tourists asking for a photograph. As usual, Cowell politely obligedsome would say his politeness was manipulation, but he believed in being pleasant to everyoneand then strode past the restaurants bouncers, across the quay, and stepped onto Take Five, a new VanDutch speedboat, his summer toy. Taking control from the ship hand, he sharply levered the throttle. Speed was an easy cure to his stress. Zooming across the flat sea at 45 mph, he steered into the darkness beyond the harbor walls. The exhilaration provoked a smile and he swung back toward his gleaming pleasure craft, a haven of privacy from the mobs.

Sitting on Slipstreams spacious aft deck, Cowell glanced at the latest text messages from Los Angeles. Not good, he announced. Casting aside the nearly full bottleAnother cold one, he orderedhe took a swig and headed for his suite. In Los Angeles, everyone was still awake. He needed a postmortem. He anticipated making telephone calls until daybreak.

Seven hours earlier, Cowell had been linked by satellite from the yachts lounge to Los Angeles, where two hundred fifty television critics had gathered for the industrys showcase of the autumn season. This is the Big One, Cowell had told Fox TVs executives. After thirty years in the music business, Cowell was gambling his fate on The X Factors successful launch in America.

I only play to win, he volunteered. Repeatedly, he had reedited a glitzy twelve-minute promotion tape highlighting the X Factor auditions recently held in Pasadena, California. His pursuit of the tapes editors in Los Angeles was a foretaste of the pressure he put on himself and others to produce flawless programs. Theyll get it in the neck, he promised. Perfectionism and unpredictability were his trademark.

We all love this tape and this is going to be a great launch, he enthused about the mixture of tantrums, tears, and seductive singing to be shown to the journalists.

In Pasadena, he had picked Stacy Francis, a forty-two-year-old single mother, as the competitions probable winner. Shell be bigger than Susan Boyle, he privately predicted. And if not Stacy, his next favorite was Rachel Crow, a frizzy-haired thirteen-year-old from a remote farm in Colorado. Both backstories are special, he said with daunting self-confidence, adding to his friends on the yacht, Ill be worried if the audience doesnt get to thirty million plus. His ambitious target for The X Factor, he predicted, would humble American Idols 2011 average of twenty-three million viewers.

Attacking Idol was not a publicity stunt. Ridiculing the program that made him famous in America had become an all-consuming passion. To keep him happy, Fox had just broadcast a controversial promotional teaser for The X Factor in the middle of the All-Star baseball game. The commercial featured Cowell waking from a nightmare in which he was still working on American Idol. The promise was that The X Factor would push the bland Idol aside. Many viewers were baffled, but not more than Idols producers. Their program, after all, was also broadcast by Fox. Fevered critics spoke about cannibalism and self-destruction as they witnessed the calculated gamble taken by Fox executives to stage The X Factor.

With glee, Foxs rivals had watched the recent turmoil about the judge Cheryl Coles acrimonious departure from the U.S. X Factor and intensified their plots to usurp Cowells supremacy. Fractured relationships always undermined self-confidence and the promo tape during the baseball game had just flopped. I felt zero when I saw it, admitted Cowell two months later. It was too clever and aimed at women when the audience was all male. Three months after that, he would describe his strategy as a blunder. That afternoons satellite presentation from the yacht to journalists in Los Angeles was a premonition of things to come.

X Factor is like nothing youve seen before, Cowell began. Were throwing everything in to winto make the best TV show in the world. The X Factor, he declared unambiguously, would be better than American Idol. Were looking for contestants with star quality who we can turn into stars. The X Factor had not been launched, he answered one journalist, to win the silver medal, and there was an unprecedented five-million-dollar prize. I want to show that the process is honestwarts and all, he declared, aiming to silence the repeated accusations about behind-the-scenes manipulation and deception. The journalists were not told that he was broadcasting from the Mediterranean. As he spoke, Cowell cursed the three-second delay of his voice. Are you the PR puppet meister? asked a woman. No, he replied. Its not our intention to be mean. Thats just within us.

Paula Abdul, the star singer and dancer, sitting in the Los Angeles studio, described her reaction after being invited by Cowell to become an X Factor judge. I felt harrowed and elated and I cried for days after, she said. For Abdul, who had left American Idol after its eighth season, it was the end of three years in the wilderness. Well, I give everyone a third chance, cut in Cowell smugly. The voice of Nicole Scherzinger, Cheryl Coles replacement, followed, but her words were incomprehensible down a deteriorating sound feed. Nicoles selfish, Cowell chimed in, reflecting his suspicion that the former Pussycat Doll was focused solely on self-glorification. He also happened to take pleasure in expressing blunt truths.

Weve got a problem, rattled the TV technicians voice across the yachts plush interior. The sound had been cut. Next, the screen went black. Technology was sabotaging the master of control. Thats it, announced the production manager on the yacht. To Cowells disgust, this same production manager, despite being responsible for the wreck of the presentation, now asked for a photograph of the two together. But, always gracious, he smoothly agreed, fulfilled the chore, and then hurried to his private suite. The feed was bad, the production was bad and we had no leadership, Cowell said, lambasting his producers in Los Angeles. The happy spell on the pristine yacht had been broken. Doubtless, all would be forgotten after a good nights sleep, but new problems were certain to arise the following day, because every day brought problems.