Simon Cowell showed Americans his softer side last week, telling Oprah Winfrey he suffered from depression and that he had made “some absolutely horrific mistakes” in the past.
The normally abrasive American Idol judge said during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show that he was prone to dark moods.
“I get very, very down,” Cowell said. “Pretty much depression. [But] what I always say is, ‘You’re taking yourself too seriously, so stop it.’ At the same time, you should never put a painted smile on. When you’re feeling down, you’re feeling down.”
Cowell, 50, who also has his own record label and created the TV shows America’s Got Talent and The X-Factor, said he sometimes felt drained by the demands of his work.
“You just become aware that a lot of people depend on you, rely on you, or you’re not giving people the time you should be giving them. It’s almost like a guilt thing, and that does drain me,” he said.
Often seen as arrogant because of his stinging put-downs to aspiring singers, Cowell admitted that he had a strong ego.
But life hasn’t always been kind. He recalled the time 20 years ago when he lost his job, car and home and had to move back to live with his parents in Britain when a business deal went wrong.
“I made some absolutely horrific mistakes. I believed my own ego, believed my own hype, believed my own abilities, and lots of times it came crashing down,” he said. “I thought I was absolutely untouchable.”
Cowell’s interview with Winfrey was broadcast a week before Wednesday’s finale of American Idol, which will mark the end of his eight year association with the most-watched TV show in the US.
In another interview last week, the soon to be divorced husband of Sandra Bullock says he is probably the “most hated man in the world” for having cheated on the popular actress.
A tearful Jesse James, giving his first TV interview since the March split with Bullock, took the blame for the break-up of what had seemed a happy marriage.
“I took a pretty amazing life and amazing success and marriage ... and threw it away by my own hands,” the custom motorcycle maker told ABC News show Nightline.
James, 41, admitted cheating on his wife of five years. According to media reports, he had affairs with at least four women — one of them while Bullock was away last year filming what would be her Oscar-winning role in drama The Blind Side.
Bullock, 45, had given emotional speeches at the Oscars and other Hollywood awards shows thanking James for his support.
Bullock, the star of romantic comedies The Proposal and Miss Congeniality, left their southern California home when the cheating allegations broke in the media in March, just days after she won her first Oscar.
She has since filed for divorce, despite revealing that the couple had adopted a baby together in January. She told People magazine in an April interview that she would raise the baby alone.
Asked by Nightline interviewer Vicki Mabrey whether he was “the most hated man in America” — as some US celebrity magazines have labeled him for cheating on Bullock — James replied: “I think ‘the most hated man in the world’ now.”
The interview with James will be broadcast on Good Morning America on Wednesday and on Nightline on Thursday.
Lindsay Lohan returned to Los Angeles from France on Saturday night, two days after missing a probation hearing that caused a judge to briefly issue a warrant for her arrest.
Wearing dark hat and sunglasses, Lohan, 23, flew into Los Angeles and gave the slip to many of the paparazzi who had been stalking around the air terminal all day, according to media reports, after a week of partying at the Cannes film festival.
The Mean Girls actress missed a court hearing in Beverly Hills last week for failing to complete alcohol education classes imposed for a 2007 drunken driving case, angering the judge overseeing her case. She blamed a stolen passport.
But Judge Marsha Revel issued an arrest warrant for Lohan on Thursday, and later it was revoked after her legal team posted bail of US$100,000.
The judge said Lohan must now undergo random drug and alcohol testing, get fitted with an alcohol monitoring bracelet and not drink any alcohol until she turns up in court.
Revel extended Lohan’s probation last October and warned her then that she risked being sent to jail. The alcohol education classes are part of the actress’s sentence for a 2007 arrest for drunken driving, reckless driving and driving under the influence of cocaine.
Lohan was considered one of Hollywood’s most talented young actresses after films like Freaky Friday and Bobby. But despite three stints in rehab in 2007, her movie career has slumped and her frequent night-clubbing has become a staple of celebrity gossip columns.
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