Tom Bower - Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell

Sweet Revenge

The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell

TOM BOWER

To Veronica

He who seeks revenge should remember to dig two graves.

Chinese proverb

Marvin Gayes Aint No Mountain High Enough was blaring across the dark Mediterranean as Simon Cowell pulled on his Kool cigarette. Today was an eye-opener, he reflected, swigging a freezing Sapporo beer. Im disappointed.

At 2.30 a.m. on 5 August 2011, Cowell had returned to Slipstream, his 193-foot chartered yacht, from Le Boli, a brash restaurant in Cannes harbour. 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 recognise their famous guest.

After eating only a single course, Cowell had unexpectedly risen and declared, Lets go. The groups exit had been delayed by a dozen tourists from Essex asking for a photograph. As usual, Cowell politely obliged some would say his politeness was manipulation, but he believed in being pleasant to everyone and 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 pushed the throttle forward sharply. Speed was an easy cure for his stress. Zooming across the flat sea at 45 mph, he steered into the darkness beyond the harbour walls. The exhilaration provoked a smile and he swung the boat towards his gleaming gin palace, a haven of privacy from the mob.

Sitting on Slipstream s spacious aft deck, Cowell glanced at the latest text messages from Los Angeles. Not good, he announced. Casting aside the nearly full bottle of beer, he ordered, Another cold one, and took a swig before heading for his suite. In Los Angeles, everyone was still awake. He needed a post-mortem. He anticipated making telephone calls until daybreak.

*

Seven hours earlier, Cowell had been linked by satellite from the yachts lounge to Los Angeles, where 250 television critics had gathered for the industrys showcase of the upcoming autumn season. This is the big one, Cowell had told Foxs executives. After thirty years in the music business, he was gambling his fate on The X Factor s successful launch in America.

I only play to win, he volunteered. He had repeatedly re-edited a glitzy twelve-minute promotion tape highlighting the X Factor USA auditions recently held in Pasadena. His pursuit of the tapes editors in Los Angeles was a foretaste of how he would pressure them to produce flawless programmes. Theyll get it in the neck like canaries in a mine, he had promised. Perfectionism and unpredictability were his gospel.

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 predicted privately. After Stacy, his next favourite was Rachel Crow, a frizzy-haired thirteen-year-old from a remote farm in Colorado. Both back-stories are special, he said with daunting self-confidence, adding to his friends on the yacht, Ill be worried if the audience doesnt get to 30 million plus. His ambitious target for The X Factor USA, he said, would humble American Idol s 2011 average of 23 million viewers.

Attacking Idol was not a sideshow. Ridiculing the programme which had 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 USA in the middle of the All Stars 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 none more so than Idol s producers. After all, their programme 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 USA.

Foxs rivals had watched the recent turmoil surrounding Cheryl Coles acrimonious departure from the US show with glee and had intensified their plots to usurp Cowells supremacy. Fractured relationships always undermined self-confidence, and the promo tape during the baseball game was an own goal. 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 later, he would describe his strategy as a blunder. That afternoons satellite presentation from the yacht to the journalists in Los Angeles was a premonition of fate.

The X Factor is like nothing youve seen before, he began. Were throwing everything in to win to make the best TV show in the world. The X Factor USA, he declared unambiguously, would be better than American Idol. Were looking for contestants with star quality whom we can turn into stars. The X Factor USA had not been launched, he answered one journalist , to win the silver medal, and there was an unprecedented $5-million prize. I want to show that the process is honest warts and all, he pledged, aiming to silence the repeated accusations about behind-the-scenes manipulation and deception. The journalists had not been told that he was broadcasting from the Mediterranean and, as he spoke, Cowell cursed the three-second delay to 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.

Sitting in the Los Angeles studio, Paula Abdul, the singer and dancer, described her reaction at being invited by Cowell to become an X Factor USA judge. I felt harrowed and elated and I cried for days after, she said, three years in the wilderness at an end. Well, I give everyone a third chance, cut in Cowell smugly. Nicole Scherzingers voice followed, but the words of Cheryl Coles replacement were incomprehensible down a deteriorating sound feed. Nicoles selfish, Cowell chipped in live, reflecting his niggle that the former Pussycat Doll was focused solely on self-glorification and also his pleasure of expressing blunt truths.

Weve got a problem, rattled the TV technicians voice across Slipstream s 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, the same manager whom he blamed for the disaster now asked for a photograph of the two of them together, but, always graceful, he smoothly fulfilled the chore and then hurried to his private suite. The feed was bad, the production was bad and we had no leadership, Cowell lambasted his producers in Los Angeles. The happy spell on the pristine yacht had been broken. Doubtless all would be forgotten after a nights sleep, but new problems were certain to arise the following day.

*

Cowell had arrived on the Cte dAzur on a private jet from Los Angeles after stopping in New York to collect his favourite holiday companions. Three couples had been invited to take care of his needs and join in the fun.

One guest was his best friend, Paul McKenna, the hypnotist and self-improvement guru, who was accompanied by Sam, an attractive English woman. The others were Andrew Silverman, a New York property developer and the owner of a casino in Panama, and his wife Lauren; and Kelly Bergantz, employed by Cowell as an executive producer, and her boyfriend, a hedge-fund manager. All the women were glamorous, high-octane players willing to pander to Cowells innocent whims. They were joined by Sinitta, his former girlfriend, whose song So Macho was Cowells first hit in 1986. To widespread bewilderment including that of Julie Cowell, his eighty-six-year-old mother Cowells former flames remained his closest friends, united by their jealousy towards each other while competing for his attention.