Simon Cowell’s bluntness showed up at 5

Julie Cowell, 82, says her son’s signature honesty began to show up early, at age five. “I bought a new hat and asked him if I looked nice in it. He replied, ‘You look like a poodle.’ It would only upset me if he really was a nasty person. Simon isn’t nasty – he’s just honest.”

Cowell said Simon, who just turned 50, was raised in the UK on politeness, which is more important to her than his wildly successful television career. Julie often goes to the studio to watch the son she said informed her he would not be getting married at the tender age of 19. “I thought he might change his mind, but he’s now 50 and it doesn’t look likely to happen.”

Julie, who survived breast cancer 14 years ago, recalled her husband Eric’s death of a heart attack on the day Simon had his first Number One in the US with Westlife. She said: “Simon phoned me from America, thrilled. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that his father had died, and I said I’d call him back. I wanted him to have his day of celebration but he had to be told, so [Simon’s brother] Nicholas called him. He came straight home and was devastated.”

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