Playboy Interview: Simon Cowell

Nasty, surly, bitchy, smarmy, loutish, imperi­ous, vain, vicious, loathsome, arrogant, smug, snide, obnoxious, rude and mean. Those are only some of the adjectives that have been applied to Simon Cowell during his reign as executioner on American Idol, which on Janu­ary 16 begins its sixth season on Fox.

Cmoell, 47, is the grandest prime-time villain since J.R. Ewing. overshadowing fellow Idol judges Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul and host Ryan Seacrest. With a lordly /lair and a stagy British accent, he dismisses aspiring singers with a roll of his eyes or a lash of his tongue.

He started his career in the mail room at EMI; his father, Eric, a prosperous executive, ran the company's property division. But the younger Cowell struggled in the music busi­ness and even went bankrupt. At the age of 30 he returned home to live with his father and mother, Julie, who remains very close to her son. Cowell made his breakthrough by signing a deal with Robson is- Jerome, a pair of British actors who had sung the Righteous Brothers hit "Unchained Melody"on a 7 I show but weren't interested in recording. Cowell persisted, tele­phoning the pair repeatedly, and their record became the top-selling British single of 1995.

Soon he had cornered the market in shameless-ness and attained a lucrative position releasing novelty records; he signed the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and the World Wrestling Fed-

eration, including its most gruesome wrestler. the Undertaker. Most of his acts, including Curiosity Killed the Cat, 5ive and Sinitta, had only flashy, fleeting success, though he also signed Westlife, an Irish boy band that now has more U.K. number one hits than anyone except Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

American Idol debuted inauspiciously in June 2002 as a summer replacement series on Fox, after the program had been rejected by ABC, NBC, CBS, the WB and UPN. The show was based on Pop Idol, which had pre­miered on TV in the U.K. the prei'ious October. It was devised by Cowell—the only judge to appear on both programs—and Simon Fuller, a Brit who had managed the Spice Girls. By the time season one ended, with Kelly Clarkson's victory, American Idol had an audience of more than 26 million viewers.

The division of riches seemed tidy: Cowell released Idol-related records on his Sony BMG-distributed label, while Fuller owned part of the show and managed the Idol win­ners' careers. But in 2004 the two partners ended up in a legal battle after Cowell pro­duced a new U.K. talent competition, The X Factor, and Fuller accused him of stealing the idea from Pop Idol. The lawsuit was settled, with Cowell agreeing to return to Idol for five more seasons. Recently he has become a real­ity-TV magnate, producing three other shows

(American Inventor, America's Got Talent and Celebrity Duets), with as many as 1U more programs going into production.

i'I.avboy Contributing Editor Rob Tannenbaum spent two afternoons with Cowell in his London office. "Simon's mouth is always in motion," he reports. "One min­ute he's eating fruit, drinking tea or taking drops to combat migraines. The next he's giving instructions to his assistant—whom he addresses as 'sweetheart,' as he does most women—or he's on the phone, giving typically strong opinions: 'It's stupid, stupid, stupid. It's just pathetic, in fact.'

"He's too cheeky and mischievous to really be a tyrant, but it doesn't look fun to be on the receiving end of a Cowell insult. He told me he gets ornery only when bored, so I did my best not to bore him."

PLAYBOY: Let's get to the heart of the mat­ter. Are you, Simon, an asshole? COWELL: [Laughs] Well, / don't think I am. But based on public opinion, yeah, I am. If half the people think I'm an asshole, then I'm half an asshole. PLAYBOY: What does the other half think? COWELL: People say, "I like your honesty," or "I like the fact that you're not politically correct." To be truthful, I don't think I'm an asshole. To me, an asshole is someone

who pretends to be nice in public but is a complete monster behind the scenes. PLAYBOY: So you're no more of a monster in private than you are in public. COWELL: Funny enough, I'm quite polite in real life. I don't tolerate rudeness to people like waiters or stewardesses. PLAYBOY: You certainly don't seem polite on American Idol.

COWELL: Well, if I tape an 11-hour day, guess which 20 minutes end up on the air. Not the bits when I'm pleasant but the parts when I'm obnoxious. PLAYBOY: When people see you in public, are they rude to you? COWELL: Normally they want me to be rude to them. People come up to me and sing, and I sav, "That was great. Thank

you." And they're like. "Well, aren't you going to be rude to me?" No. "Well, can you be rude to me?" No! When I miss auditions, contestants get upset that I'm not there, because they expect me to be cruel to them— it's some sort of badge of honor. That's how crazy everything is. PLAYBOY: Maybe later we'll sing for you, and you can tell us what you think.

COWELL: You really want to do that? You don't really want to do that.

PLAYBOY: Why not? COWELL: Because I've spent so much of my life sitting in talent meetings, thinking, What the hell am I going to say at the end of this? You know, about 15 years ago I was going to work with Eddie Murphy. He was inter­ested in making a record, so I flew to the East Coast, to his huge house, and I was very intimi­dated. I thought it would be just the two of us and a hi-fi. But I ended up in a recording studio with about 20 nodders; a nod-der is somebody who gets paid to agree with the person paying him. Eddie started to play some songs, which I hated, and I just didn't know what to say. Now I'd find it a lot easier. I would just say, "I hate it."

PLAYBOY: How's your voice? Can you sing a little bit?

COWELL: Absolutely not a note, no. I'm what's called flat.

PLAYBOY: But your mother has said you have a great voice.

COWELL: [Laughs] She was being sarcastic. I mean, she knows I can't sing. PLAYBOY: Is sarcasm a family trait? COWELL: If I'm comfortable with some­body, I'm happy being sarcastic and pok­ing fun. It's a sign of affection. PLAYBOY: Okay, so you can't sing, and you don't produce records. COWELL: No

PLAYBOY: You don't play an instrument or write songs. Yet you've made a for-

tune in the music business. What's

your specific talent?

COWELL: That's a very good question,

actually. My talent is for creating (hings

the public will like. I'm an instigator. I

come up with an idea, put it together

and engineer the process creatively.

PLAYBOY: Most music executives do that.

What sets you apart?

COWELL: An understanding of what a

mass audience will enjoy. I get that.

I would watch or listen to most of the

things I create. I use my own taste as a

benchmark.

PLAYBOY: Do you think other executives

get caught up in chasing music that's

cool or innovative?

COWELL: In TV, film and music there's a

lot of snobbery, and I don't like it. If I

don't like French food, that doesn't make

me a lesser person.

PLAYBOY: So your taste is very mass-market.

COWELL: I think so, yes.

PLAYBOY: And that's not calculated. It's

your natural taste.

COWELL: Yeah, it's my natural tasle. I

mean, look, I'm 47 years old. You can't

pretend to like caviar if you hate the

tasle of it. It's the same with what you

listen to and watch. But I'm lucky I

have very broad taste.

PLAYBOY: Can you give us some examples?

COWELL: If you looked in my colledion of

DVDs, you'd see Jaws and Star Wars. In

the book library you'd see John Grisham

and Sidney Sheldon. And if you look in

my fridge, it's like children's food—chips, milk shakes, yogurt. I don't have sophis­ticated tastes. I have average tastes. PLAYBOY: So this is your asset in looking lor lalenl: You have average taste. COWELL: I think so. I've never been a cultural snob. Like I said, if I went to a French restaurant—which I prob­ably never will again—I would ask the chef to make a plate of chips. I look at those menus in utter horror. I find them appalling—pigeon, the insides ol ani­mals, all that weird stufl. I can't stand it. PLAYBOY: You don't like to try new things, do you?

COWELL: I'm a big fan of most things retro. I like watching Fantasy Island and The Jet-soiis, stufl like that. If I were to buv three

albums, they would probably be by Frank Sinatra. Bobby Darin and Tony Bennett. I work in a business in which you're sup­posed to create new things, but I have no problem saying I don't like much that is around me at the moment.

PLAYBOY: How much of the music on Idol do you like? COWELL: Once a week 1 may enjoy one or two performances, at most. I'm not sitting there lapping it up like Paula Abdul, [laughs] I'm not saying, "God, aren't I lucky to be paid for listening to these wonderful singers?" PLAYBOY: In your autobiography you say. "I'm always right." So we'll remind you of a few times you were wrong. You said Clay Aiken would have the longest career of any Idol performer. COWELL: That was when I knew a little less about Clay. What we saw on the show and what we see today are two slightly differ­ent people. I thought he could have had a career as long as Barry Manilow's. PLAYBOY: What changed since you said that?

COWELL: Oh, there's been so much siull in the tabloids about him. PLAYBOY: You mean rumors about his being gay?

COWELL: Look, if someone's gay, who cares? 1 couldn't care less. The fact is, tab­loid coverage affects a large chunk of his fan base. When he was on the show, he was a very clean-cut guy, an underdog. That will always work for the middle-American audience. Now when you men­tion (Hay, all that other siufl'comes out, and that will ailed his popularity. PLAYBOY: You also said that Tamyra Gray was a star. COWELL: I still think she is. PLAYBOY: Not as of today, she isn't. COWELL: She's got an amazing voice. She put out a record that wasn't good enough. But if Tamyra had been given songs as good as Kelly Clarkson's, she'd be selling a lot ol records. (continued on page 133)

SIMON COWELL

(continued from page 48)

PLAYBOY: Who is your favorite American Idol singer?

COWELL: Well, I love Fantasia. And I love Tamyra. In terms of pure quality I love Kelly. I said a few unkind things about her after she refused to allow her songs to be sung on Idol, and 1 stand by that. But Kelly's really one of the top five singers in the world today. This girl is a young Aretha Franklin. PLAYBOY: Judging from what you said on the show, it's surprising you haven't men­tioned Carrie Underwood, who won sea­son four. You told her, "Not only will you win this competition, but you will sell more records than any previous Idol winner." COWELL: I was looking at Carrie purely from a marketing perspective. We needed a nice, cute, blonde middle-American country crossover artist that year, and we got it.

PLAYBOY: So while you judge the contes­tants, you think about which one can most help the show.

COWELL: Of course. If they're not success­ful on the back end, there's no point in doing the show. I'm looking for the per­son who will sell a lot of records, because then the show will have more validity the following year.

PLAYBOY: Does that mean sometimes the best singer doesn't win? COWELL: I think the American audience has pretty much gotten it right every year. Tamyra was the one instance when I felt disappointed. I would like to have seen her compete with Kelly in the final. It would have been well matched, whereas Kelly versus Justin (iuarini was just a ridiculous mismatch. PLAYBOY: Did you see the movie they did, l-'nitn Justiti to Kelly?

COWELL: No, I couldn't bring myself to watch it. I was dead against it. PLAYBOY: Do you think it was made just for money?

COWELL: Yeah. I mean, there was no other reason.

PLAYBOY: Have you been offered any him roles?

COWELL: I did a cameo in Scary Movie 3 and realized I can't act. The money was good. Normally I'm very confident: I'm in my environment, looking at every­body, going. "Ha ha, you don't know what you're doing." Then I was the one who didn't know what he was doing, and it was just mind-blowingly embar­rassing. Any role I'm offered now, for­get it. Not interested. PLAYBOY: You think Clarkson is fantastic, but in your autobiography you say Bob Dylan is earnest and boring. To you, is Clarkson better than Dylan?

COWELL: Do I prefer Kelly Clarkson's music to Bob Dylan's? Yes. I've never bought a Dylan record. A singing poet? It just bores me to tears. And I've got to tell you, if I had 10 Dylans in the final of American Idol, we would not be getting 30 million viewers a week. PLAYBOY: But is the show only about get­ting 30 million viewers? Isn't there a point when you think, It would be great to discover the next Dylan? COWELL: I don't believe the Bob Dylans of this world would make American Idol a better show—and that's no disrespect to Dylan. Good luck to you; you're very talented. Just not my thing. PLAYBOY: If you went to a club tonight and saw the 21-year-old Dylan singing "Blowin' in the Wind," what would you do? COWELL: I'd plug my ears and run in the other direction.

PLAYBOY: In 1995 Robson & Jerome, one of the first acts you signed, were a pair of actors who had sung the Righteous Brothers song "Unchained Melody" on a British TV series. You were just looking to cash in quickly on their fame. COWELL: I knew thousands of people were trying to buy the record, so 1 put the record out. It was as simple as that. It made a lot of money, they made a lot of money, and we're still friends today. No, we didn't go into it with a 20-year plan. PLAYBOY: Did you think the Undertaker was going to have a career as a singer when you signed him? COWELL: Oh God, no. That was just my being a businessman. If you can sell 82,000 stadium seats, chances are you're going to sell a few hundred thousand records alongside that. PLAYBOY: Lots of other executives would be embarrassed to sign a professional wrestler, the Teletubbics or TV actors. Why are you different? COWELL: I'm interested only in making money, for myself and the people I work for. I mean, that's absolutely the only cri­terion I attach. That's it. PLAYBOY: Your only interest is money? COWELL: That's the nnh thing we think about: Will it make money? And not just for us—for the artists as well. Let me tell you, artists are as interested in making money as we are. They're not donating their money to charity, trust me. PLAYBOY: What do you do with all your money?

COWELL: Mainly buy houses. I have four. I love houses.

PLAYBOY: Are you extravagant? Is that T-shirt particularly expensive? COWELL: No. it was probably $100. The jeans were probably $200. My extrava-

gances in life are cars and houses. I take

only one vacation a year.

PLAYBOY: Okay, we know a guy who's

a murderer. And this murderer has a

pretty decent singing voice...

COWELL: [Laughs] No!

PLAYBOY: But you thought about it for

a second.

COWELL: No. I didn't! 1 was laughing at

the question. No, I'm not interested in

signing murderers. Other people sign

murderers.

PLAYBOY: Who signs murderers?

COWELL: 1 think a lot of rap acts have

murdered people.

PLAYBOY: What if a murderer could make

you lots of money?

COWELL: Look, the truth is 1 don't need

to do that.

PLAYBOY: Okay, today you're incredibly

rich. But imagine this------

COWELL: You haven't forgotten about the murderer, have you? You're not going to let this one go.

PLAYBOY: It's 1994. You haven't had a hit record yet. You have the chance to sign a murderer with a nice voice. Do you sign him?

COWELL: Manslaughter I may consider. Murder I think I'd have to say no. [laughs]

PLAYBOY: What was your reputation in the mid-1990s, when you began hav­ing hits?

COWELL: People thought I was stupid for signing the music rights to the Power Rangers and the World Wrestling Fed­eration. I was a laughingstock. PLAYBOY: Did you mind that you were a laughingstock?

COWELL: Oh. I couldn't have cared less. I was learning the business. If I could put a Power Rangers record on the charts, I must have been good. PLAYBOY: Let's talk about the history of Idol. You guys had a terrible time selling the show in the U.S., didn't you? COWELL: We sold Pop Idol to the U.K. on one meeting, which is rare. The meet­ing lasted 20 or 30 minutes, and within two minutes we'd made the pitch and were told yes immediately. It was that easy. When the show was in production, we thought it was the right time to do the same thing in America. We flew to L.A. and had five or six meetings. I was expecting the same kind of reaction we'd had in the U.K.

PLAYBOY: "Simon, you're a genius!" COWELL: Well, yes. It was a mistake to have those meetings before the U.K. rat­ings came in.

PLAYBOY: Even UPN passed on American Idol. What worse indignity is there? COWELL: I thought the whole thing was quite amusing, lo be honest with you. Because the meetings were.vo bad, I quite enjoyed the fact thai everyone hated the idea so much. 1 was kind of laughing and sniggering and making the meetings last as long as possible before we'd actually get thrown out.

PLAYBOY: Most of us are hurt by rejection. It doesn't seem to bother you. COWELL: I'd rather get a positive reaction than a rejection, but it happens. And you just think. Well, you don't know what you're talking about, and I'm right. PLAYBOY: You've said Idol isn't really a music show; it's a soap opera. COWELL: Yes. You identify with some people on the show, you hate some, and you like some.

PLAYBOY: Every soap opera needs a vil­lain. Who's the villain on Idol} COWELL: Sometimes me, sometimes Paula, [laughs] PLAYBOY: But mostly.... COWELL: Mostly me. When people first tuned in, what I was saying probably seemed a bit harsh. Hopefully audiences have become more savvy in what they're listening to. I think we've made all of America into music critics. They know about bad pitch and singing sharp or flat. And I think that unless I'm just being gratuitously rude, which occasionally I am, then I'm making a point people agree with. The stats back me up. We've probably had half a million people apply for American Idol. And how many careers have we launched off the back of that, true careers? Not many. PLAYBOY: How many? COWELL: Two, three maybe. Even with that kind of mass exposure, it's still difficult. All I'm saying on the show is, look, it's really difficult if you're good. It's actually impossible if you're average. So let me allow you to do something with your life that you're good at. rather than give you a stupid comment like "With a few singing lessons everything will turn around." Well, it won't. So I think people understand that I'm sort of being kind, actually, [laughs]

PLAYBOY: A case of cruel to be kind? COWELL: Yes.

PLAYBOY: Have you ever said anything

you regret?

COWELL: Yeah, many, many times. But

having said that------

PLAYBOY: You'd do it again? COWELL: [Laughs] You have to go into an audition room and say what's on your mind. Maybe when you watch it later you're in a good mood, but at the audi­tion you were in a bad mood, so you go, "Oh God, I went a bit too far." Or the backstory comes into the equation, which you don't hear in the audition—the sing­er's dog died yesterday, he walks in and you're really dismissive. PLAYBOY: Do you look at contestants and think. Oh, you poor shmuck? COWELL: Yeah, I think that a lot. 1 mean, the odds are just appalling. I'm actually quite happy when a 17-year-old walks in and sings badly, I tell them they sing badly, and they go, "Thank you for sav­ing me from a lifetime of pain." No prob­lem—shake my hand! Enjoy your life. PLAYBOY: Are you playing a character on the show?

COWELL: I wouldn't say that. If you ask my friends if the person on TV is who they know in real life, most would say I'm exactly like that. PLAYBOY: So far you've been pretty nice to us. Where's the sarcasm? COWELL: Well, you haven't asked me to judge you, really.

PLAYBOY: Okay, then, how are the ques­tions so far?

COWELL: Interesting. And strange—not many people have asked me if I'd sign a murderer.

PLAYBOY: You realize the show's more interesting if you play the villain. COWELL: On TV I feel a sense of freedom to be more unpleasant than I would be in a social environment. I can't bear politi­cal correctness. I absolutely loathe it. 1 sort of feel I'm in this brilliant PC-free

zone lor a while, where I can be more real and say what people normally say. There's no script and no rehearsals: all I have to do is play it for real. And if occa­sionally 1 go. "I've got nothing to say." I'm still paid to say that. PLAYBOY: You're known for wearing black T-shirts. Do you genuinely like them, or have they become a trademark? COWELL: I think the black T-shirt thing has to go. I saw myself wearing a tight black T-shirt recently and thought 1 looked ridiculous. I'm too old for that. PLAYBOY: The New York Times reported you earn more than $30 million a year from Fox. Is that too high, too low or about right?

COWELL: I have a confidentiality agree­ment, so I cannot discuss that. Seriously, I would love to tell you. but I can't. PLAYBOY: If it's more than $30 million, tap your foot twice.

COWELL: I'm smiling. It was a good deal. PLAYBOY: And you work on the show only for an hour and a half a week. COWELL: Yes, when the show goes live, it's an hour and a half of screen time. PLAYBOY: It's not an arduous job. is it? COWELL: No, it's not.

PLAYBOY: The past season was pretty con­troversial. You made some comments about performers' weight and sexuality. COWELL: Whose?

PLAYBOY: You don't remember saying about Mandisa, "Do we have a bigger stage?' COWELL: Oh that. That was a bit contro­versial, yeah. I'm not excusing what I said, but she had left the room. I was being a smartass, and it was picked up on camera. Under normal circumstances that would not be in the show. 1 was uncomfortable about it. PLAYBOY: How about the Charles Barry comment? cowell: Who's he?

PLAYBOY: The guy you said should shave his beard and wear a dress. COWELL: Oh him. 1 thought that was a good comment.

PLAYBOY: You don't think you were bait­ing him and implying he was gay? COWELL: No! Look, in my view, he was gay. Who cares? He would probably make more money singing in drag clubs than trying to be an R&.-B singer. PLAYBOY: Ah. so you were suggesting a career path for him. You were being helpful yet again.

COWELL: Yes. I was. I thought so. He didn't. I don't think there was too much controversy about that. I know the Man­disa thing caused problems. Let's put it this way: I wouldn't have booked myself on The I'inr the week after that. PLAYBOY: What about the night you said Ryan Seacrest's favorite song is "It's Raining Men,' implying he's gay? COWELL: This is continual. Wejust wind each other up. He's one of my best friends. PLAYBOY: Can you understand why some people were offended that you would call someone gay as a way of insulting him?

COWELL: Not really, no. It's more a per­sonal thing with Ryan, rather than say­ing all gay people are bad. You know, most of my friends in the world are gay, and they certainly wouldn't have taken offense at that. PLAYBOY: Most of your friends are gay? COWELL: I work in music and TV. [laugh.1,] One or two gay people work in these businesses.

PLAYBOY: Did the producers tell you to knock off the gay jokes this past season? COWELL: No. In the first season I made a similar remark, and Ryan came back with a comment along the lines of "Yes, and your favorite club is the Manhole." Ihat's when someone from Fox stepped in and said, "Okay, guys, enough. Calm

it down a bit." PLAYBOY: When

did you last see Paula Abdul?

COWELL: Oh gosh.

Two months ago? She guested on The X Factor. PLAYBOY: Were

you surprised she agreed?

COWELL: A little bit, yeah. PLAYBOY: When there is no business to conduct, do you speak to her? COWELL: Not very often. I consider her a friend. I try to look out for her. She doesn't always think I do, but I do. PLAYBOY: Why does she need looking alter?

COWELL: Everyone needs looking after. I need looking after. Randy Jack­son needs looking after. Ryan needs looking after. PLAYBOY: That's a little bit of a dodge. COWELL: Paula is a single girl, she's

an emotional girl, and things get to be too much sometimes. You need some­one you can talk to. PLAYBOY: Well, she has said of you, "He's a pussycat. We are great friends." COWELL: I think it depends on when you ask her that question. I think in good times I am the nicest person in the world. In bad times I am the devil. PLAYBOY: For instance, you've said, "I actually can't stand her." COWELL: At times I can't. You're asking me on a good day. Maybe in three weeks it will be a bad day.

PLAYBOY: It's a good day because you haven't seen her in two months. COWELL: Maybe, yeah, [laughs] We have

a very volatile relationship. I mean one minute we're like Siamese twins, and then we're Tom and Jerry. PLAYBOY: Is it sexual chemistry? COWELL: I don't think so, but maybe. PLAYBOY: Are you attracted to her? COWELL: Sometimes I am, yeah. PLAYBOY: People say it's an act, you and Abdul.

COWELL: If you were observing us over a two-week period, you'd see it's certainly not an act. There's no premeditation in any part of this show. PLAYBOY: One contestant, Corey Clark, claimed he had an affair with her. Do you think (here's any validity to that? COWELL: No, I'm 100 percent certain it's not true, because I would have

known about it. You can't keep that kind of thing a secret. PLAYBOY: Are you a little bit of a sadist? COWELL: A little, yeah. I find other peo­ple's misfortunes amusing, for sure; I'm not going to lie. When people come on my show and are absolutely dreadful and think they're fantastic, there's something interesting about the whole process. PLAYBOY: That's slightly cruel. COWELL: It is, yes, I know. But it com­pletely fascinates me. Strange people fascinate me.

PLAYBOY: Why did you walk off the show this past season?

COWELL: I walked off an episode, yeah. I'd had enough of Paula and Randy. I

thought they were being obnoxious, try­ing to belittle me. I felt uncomfortable. It was like, "I don't need to listen to this. I'm bored of you two. If you guys have the answers, you judge the show without me." So I went home. PLAYBOY: Was it a case of not liking a taste of your own medicine? COWELL: No, if it had been more confron­tational. I could have dealt with it. It was more like sniping.

PLAYBOY: Were they nicer the next day? COWELL: I spoke to Randy that night, and it was fine. Randy and I are very good friends.

PLAYBOY: When you're taping, Seacrest, Jackson and you go out once a week. COWELL: We've done that since we

started. We enjoy one another's com­pany- We'll go from a restaurant to a bar or club, whatever. PLAYBOY: The kind of bar or club where women dance naked? COWELL: [Laughs] We've done that once or twice. PLAYBOY: Do you get good treatment at strip clubs now? COWELL: Fantastic, brilliant. What sealed the friendship between the three of us was going to a Hugh Hefner party at the Playboy Man­sion for the first time. It was incredible; it really was. The best parties in the world, bar none. They're every guy's fantasy: 1.500 girls in lingerie who like you. That's how life should be. Sometimes you have to attend a party and you escape after an hour. With this one Randy, Ryan and I were like, "Two davs to ero!"

"One day to go!" "One hour to go!" PLAYBOY: Why isn't Abdul invited on your nights out?

COWELL: It would be like your little sis­ter wanting to come out when you're 17. She's not invited.

PLAYBOY: What if she wanted to get onstage and grab the pole? COWELL: She'd be more than welcome. We'd even pay her.

PLAYBOY: We notice you don't have a computer in your office. COWELL: I don't know how to work a computer, and I do not want to know. I wouldn't know how to work an MP3— what do you call them? An iPod. I wouldn't know how to work one.

PLAYBOY: It's shocking that you don't have an iPod. We assume people who don't have iPods don't love music. COWELL: Maybe that's what it is. PLAYBOY: You don't love music? COWELL: I love it at times. But if you work at a fish-and-chips shop, it's unlikely you're going to eat fish and chips at night. The idea of sitting in an audition room for 14 hours, listen­ing to people murder Stevie Wonder songs, and then putting on my iPod so I can listen to more music—it's like. No! I can't do it!

PLAYBOY: Could you go a month without listening to music?

COWELL: Easily. I go weeks and weeks without listening to music for pleasure. But I could go only two or three days without watching TV. Guys reach a point in our lives when we prefer TV to music. 1 have six TVs in my London house, including a little one in the bathroom. It's my favorite time for watching TV. PLAYBOY: It's often written that your father was in the music business, but that's not actually true. COWELL: Not really. He was on the board of directors at EMI, but the company had a record business, a publishing business, retail stores, cinemas and the property division. He ran the property division.

PLAYBOY: Would it be fair to say you grew up rich?

COWELL: Maybe at one point we would have been perceived as rich. I would describe it as comfortably well-off. PLAYBOY: What sort of a man was your dad?

COWELL: I'd describe him as a realist. He didn't say a hell of a lot; he wasn't the big­gest talker. Very good sense of humor. PLAYBOY: Are you like him? COWELL: I definitely talk more than he does. 1 probably take after my mum more than my dad.

PLAYBOY: You have a photo of your mother on your desk, and you're still very close. She even helped you get your first job, in the mail room at EMI Publishing. COWELL: Yes, she did. I was working in a film studio as a runner. When the con­tract came up she saw an advertisement for a job in the mail room. She filled in the application form. PLAYBOY: Are you a bit of a mama's boy? COWELL: I wouldn't describe myself as a mama's boy, but I have a more open mind about how you should include your parents in your social life. I think the best family occasions have grandchil­dren to grandparents and everyone in between, all in one place. PLAYBOY: You went bankrupt when you

were 30 and moved back in with your parents. Were you embarrassed ~-COWELL: No, 1 found the whole thing quite a relief. Everything went—my house, my Porsche, all the things 1 thought were important. I had nice food every night at home. I was quite happy, really. I didn't feel the slightest bit embarrassed that I was living with my parents, had no money and my car was worth £7,000. Couldn't have cared less. PLAYBOY: You were just as confident. COWELL: In a weird way, even more so because I thought. I've learned a lesson, ll was my own fault; get on with it. PLAYBOY: It seems you were a bit of a brat as a child.

COWELL: I was attracted to things I shouldn't have been attracted to—smok­ing, drinking, not going to school. 1 got bored very quickly. I didn't like the dis­cipline, didn't like the rules. PLAYBOY: Have you changed much? COWELL: A little. I understand about rules. I still don't like them. PLAYBOY: Your personality has more American attributes than British ones: optimism, determination. COWELL: Possibly. I've never been shy about saying why I do what 1 do: I do it for the money. Here in England they think that's crass or vulgar. But the truth

is, 99 out of 100 people do it for the same reason; they just don't admit it. PLAYBOY: You're also confrontational, which isn't very British. COWELL: I can't bear icy politeness. My only awkward business relationships are with people who don't express the anger they feel toward me or the resentment or jealousy. Even though it's difficult some­times, it's better to be open and honest. You call someone an asshole, he calls you an asshole, whatever. PLAYBOY: And if someone calls you an ass­hole, you're not bothered by it. COWELL: 1 don't lose sleep over it. I'm not in the liking Simon business. It's not what I do.

PLAYBOY: Actually you may be in the dis­liking Simon business. COWELL: I'm in the reality business. At this stage it's not important whether people like or dislike me. I'm more interested in whether they're listening to me. PLAYBOY: You don't have a frail constitu­tion or tender ego.

COWELL: I'm not fragile, no. Everyone thinks I must be very egotistical to do what I do, and maybe I am. But I'm quite happy for people to poke fun at me. Certainly in a lot of the shows I'm involved with I have the ability to stop myself from looking ridiculous, but if 1 think it's the right thing for the show, I'm happy to keep that in. PLAYBOY: In 2004 you created a show-called The X Factor in the U.K. Your Amer­ican Idol partner, Simon Fuller, sued you, claiming the show was an imitation of Pop Idol. So here's a theory: You started X Factor in order to have more leverage in your negotiations with Fuller about American Idol income. COWELL: It was a lot to do with that, yeah. There were reasons, which I won't go into, for which I did have to give myself more leverage. So 1 took a risk, which was. Can I make a show as successful as Idol? The downside was that if it failed, then I'd have had nothing to do with the success ol Idol. The upside was that if I could make another show as successful as Idol, I'd be in quite a strong position. PLAYBOY: Your contract to appear on Idol had expired, right?

COWELL: It was up. I didn't have the record rights beyond four years. I made it very clear that unless I have the record rights I'm not doing the show. PLAYBOY: So you threatened Fuller a little. COWELL: No. I didn't threaten him. I just thought, I've got to even things up. It wasn't a threat.

PLAYBOY: The lawsuit was settled out of court. What did you gain in the agreement? COWELL: We both got disarmament, I guess. I got the record rights, going forward, and he got from me a commitment to continue to do Idol and not put .Y Factor on in Amer­ica. So we both came out a bit happy. PLAYBOY: Did a harsh word ever pass between the two of you? COWELL: Not really.

PLAYBOY: "Not really" isn't quite the same thing as "no."

COWELL: I was a bit bothered when his lawsuit said I'd stolen, because I don't steal. Other than that I slept very well. PLAYBOY: So if you didn't steal, what did you do? Borrow? Reinterpret? COWELL: I just did my own version of a talent show, in the same way we did our version with Idol. No one can own talent shows.

PLAYBOY: Now that you're signed for another five years, make a prediction: How long will American Idol last? COWELL: God, I wouldn't have a clue. If everyone continues to get on well, we could do it for another 10 years. PLAYBOY: Will Idol outlive us all? COWELL: A few years ago I said to Fox, "Because you've scheduled us only once a year, maybe you have the musical Super Bowl." It's a big annual event you look forward to for two to three months before its return. It's not on all the time, so people may not get bored with it. PLAYBOY: You have several other shows that have been on the air in the U.S. recently: Celebrity Duets, American Inventor and America's Got Talent. Aren't all these shows just variations on Idol? COWELL: Not really, no. I've been making TV shows for only three or four years. I'm still trying to learn the business. PLAYBOY: Did you know you've been memorialized in the song "I Hate You Simon Cowell!" by Nonnie Thompson? COWELL: I don't know if I've heard that. PLAYBOY: Would you like to hear it? COWELL: Oh my God, why not? [listens to about 30 seconds of the song on his stereo] It's the most boring song I've heard in my life, [listens to another 20 seconds] It's terrible. Can I take it off? PLAYBOY: You're not curious to hear the rest?

COWELL: Absolutely not. Awful. Awful. Embarrassing.

PLAYBOY: Your girlfriend is Terri Sey­mour, a reporter on the TV show Extra. What attracted you to her? COWELL: There's something I call the day­time test. If you take a girl out at night, it's a breeze. You can drink; it's dark. The daytime is a whole new area. She passed the daytime test. PLAYBOY: How long have you been with her?

COWELL: Four years. It's my longest rela­tionship, by a mile.

PLAYBOY: Usually people who come from a happy family want to get married and have kids. Why not you? COWELL: I don't know, actually. It aJJ feels a bit grown-up, doesn't it? I don't think I would be great marriage material. I don't think I'm that reliable. PLAYBOY: Are you faithful? The British tabloids reported last summer that you were having an affair with a 21-year-old, who had been photographed leaving your house in the early morning hours. COWELL: No, I don't want to discuss

that. I've never spoken about tabloid stories, all that kind of stuff. I don't want to go there.

PLAYBOY: Okay. Seymour has said. "Women are just desperate to get near him." COWELL: Maybe one or two, not many. PLAYBOY: In the course of the show, have you been propositioned? COWELL: Probably, yes, while we're on the road, doing auditions. Funny enough, it's usually a mother rather than a contestant. PLAYBOY: What does that prove? COWELL: It proves I'm getting on a bit, that's what it proves, [laughs] PLAYBOY: Don't pretend you don't recall the details. What happened? COWELL: One mother from an early season made it quite clear what was on offer. I can't remember the city, but she collared me in the corridor and said, "I'd like to do this, this and this." And she was attractive. PLAYBOY: Let's say you had a free pass to sleep with any contestant from the show. Who would it be? COWELL: I don't think any of them have been that cute. The only one I had a crush on wasn't a contestant; she was a contestant's auntie. Which sounds odd, I know. But if you met the auntie, you'd understand. It was—Christ, what's her

name? Season one, dark hair, spoke back to me, wasn't that good a singer. Ryan Starr was her name. Anyway, her auntie turned up. "Who the hell is that}" PLAYBOY: No sexual interest in Carrie Underwood? COWELL: No.

PLAYBOY: Fantasia? COWELL: No, no, no, no, no. PLAYBOY: Clay Aiken? COWELL: Give me a break. With one or two of them you think, You're cute. But I can't say any of them is my type. I like them older and a bit more vampy. If you saw Ryan Starr's auntie, that is much more my type.

PLAYBOY: Before Seymour you dated some strippers. What's the appeal? COWELL: Well, who wouldn't want to date a stripper? I mean, this is a girl who's comfortable taking her clothes off in public. Fantastic.

PLAYBOY: There is the jealousy factor. While you're at a movie, she's dancing naked in front of a bunch of guys. COWELL: Number one, it wouldn't bother me. Number two, I don't think I've had long relationships with strippers. I think we've had flings—that's probably a better way to describe them.

PLAYBOY: If we tested you. what drugs would we find?

COWELL: Imitrex, which I take for migraines.

PLAYBOY: That's it? You've never even smoked pot?

COWELL: Once at a party years ago. but I didn't like it. I don't drink a lot. I smoke too many cigarettes, but that's mv one big vice. I like to be in control. PLAYBOY: Any interest in giving up cigarettes?

COWELL: I am loving this right now. [exhales smoke] Loving it. By banning smoking, they've made it worse for everybody. Now when you fly you're in a sealed germ tube. They used to suck the smoke out and pump fresh air in. PLAYBOY: Do you have a germ phobia? COWELL: A little bit, yes. On a plane, you've got 300 people around you for 1 1 hours. It's like, Oh Christ, this is not good.

PLAYBOY: Would you wear a mask dur­ing a flight?

COWELL: I would be quite happy to wear a mask. In fact, I bought one once. Then I thought, I'm turning into Michael Jackson. PLAYBOY: Where do the migraines come fromr

COWELL: From stress, not eating or sleep­ing properly, those kinds of things. PLAYBOY: Is it possible you have migraines for other reasons? Are there things in your life you're not happy about? COWELL: I'm quite happy at the moment, but every hour I go through some sort of anguish. Usually over failure—things don't meet your expec­tations, they don't do as well as you want, other people do better than you. All that stuff bothers me. PLAYBOY: Have you had plastic surgery?

COWELL: No.

PLAYBOY: That's an honest answer? You haven't done anything? COWELL: I have veneers on my teeth. They were a godsend. I had Botox three years ago. Everyone tried it when it first came out. People ask if I dye my hair. No. Have I had plastic surgery? No. PLAYBOY: In 2002 you were voted one of the sexiest men alive by People magazine.

COWELL: I wasn't.

PLAYBOY: You were. You got no enjoy­ment out of seeing yourself in the same pages as Brad Pitt?

COWELL: I got one major piece of enjoy­ment.

PLAYBOY: What was that? COWELL: Ryan Seacrest wasn't chosen. [laughs] Which 1 loved. That gave me total pleasure.

PLAYBOY: How did you make sure he saw a copy of the magazine? COWELL: Oh. there must have been at least 20 copies in my dressing room. And he was very quickly invited in. I had cop­ies of the magazine everywhere.

A candid conversation with American Idol's most hated judge about tone-deaf singers, cultural snobs and what he really thinks of Ryan, Randy and Paula

Who wouldn't want to date a strip­per? This is a girl who's comfortable taking her clothes off in public.

That's the only thing we think about: Will it make money? And not just for us—for the artists (is well.