My son Eric helped save my life when show left me ‘depressed and miserable’: Simon Cowell

Los Angeles| Simon Cowell says becoming a father changed his life and helped him overcome an all-encompassing obsession with work that left him ‘depressed, miserable’ and unable to sleep. 

Cowell’s straight-talking appraisals as head judge on The X Factor helped earn him a reputation as TV’s Mr. Nasty, but behind the scenes he admits to working round the clock in a frantic bid to help the show stay one step ahead of the competition.

And the music mogul, says becoming a father late in life helped steer him away from his dark, desperate and ultimately doomed attempt to salvage the former ITV flagship from a rapid decline in popularity by toying with its once successful format.  Simon said: ‘Before Eric, my life was 99 percent work — I was obsessed with it. I got to that point where everything was about, “If you’re not rating against this then you’re a failure” and I stopped enjoying what I was doing and I was miserable the whole time. ‘I was obsessed with beating the competition. I took it to a ridiculous level and I would get really down about that stuff, to the point I was depressed.’  Cowell welcomed son Eric – named after his late father – in New York City on Valentine’s Day 2014. To date he remains the mogul’s only child with fiancée Lauren Silverman.   But while his birth resulted in fans seeing a softer side to Cowell’s character, he admits to ‘tearing his hair out’ while trying to devise new concepts for The X Factor and would often stay up all night while doing so.

He said: I’m not a wall puncher but I’d tear my hair out, and then be sitting there at 4am saying, “What am I going to do?”, coming up with ridiculous ideas like the six chair challenge.

‘I was really unhappy. But now Eric is around, I don’t work through the night anymore. If he hadn’t come along, God knows what would have happened. ‘It’s sad now to think of me at my age, still working till 4am, obsessed with the TV ratings. The thought of it — I can’t deal with that.’