Simon Cowell says his 10-year-old son, Eric, was the one person to save him following the death of his parents, Julie and Eric.
During the latest episode of The Diary Of A CEO podcast, Cowell spoke about how his father, who his son was named after, died in 1999, while his mother Julie died 16 years later.
“I think particularly when I lost my mum, I was on a downward spiral at that point,” Simon Cowell recalled. “I lost everyone, you know, I’ve lost my parents. It’s finality now. What I said about the material things I’ve got, everything just meant nothing at that point.”
Noting he was “desperately unhappy,” Cowell said he wasn’t particularly enjoying his work and he just thought he was going to “become a vampire” at some point.
“I would work through until 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning,” Simon Cowell disclosed. “I would wake up at 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon and I actually got addicted to that kind of lifestyle.”
He admitted to loving the intensity that came with his schedule. “It was almost like because of the loss I’d had, I’ve got to find something else to fill it. And it was I’m just going to be a ridiculous workaholic, and I was very successful but I wasn’t happy, I really, really wasn’t happy.”
Things Turned Around For Simon Cowell When He Found Out His Fiancée Was Pregnant With Eric
However, things turned around for the famous music executive when he found his fiancée Lauren Silverman, whom he has been dating since 2004, was pregnant with their first child. The news seemingly turned everything around for him.
“For me, it was perfect because like we were talking earlier about our childhoods,” Cowell pointed out. “It was brilliant. Fantastic. I remember the first time I watched Jungle Book [with him] and I’m looking over and seeing the joy he had watching that movie. It was like, oh my God I remember how I felt when I saw The Jungle Book.”
When asked if his son saved him, Cowell declared, “Without question, without question. I really, really had reached the point where nothing mattered. Even to the point that I almost can’t remember everything from that period.”
He continued by stating, “It hit me so hard, the hardest thing also was being on television as well … I felt like a clown here because I’m dying inside.”
“And yet I’ve still got to do what I’m being paid to do as best as I could but I’d put on a ton of weight, I was eating junk, if I had got hit by a bus the following day, well, I’d be dead, but I wasn’t worried about anything like that.”