Idol Worship

ME: Is "monogamy" in your vocabulary?
COWELL: I don't know.
ME: How do you show affection?
COWELL: I don't really know. In a way, I think the more sort of cold you are, the more they try. I find displays of emotion and affection a little awkward and embarrassing.
ME: Kissing in public?
COWELL: Oh, God, no. No, no, no, no.
ME: Have you ever told a girl you love her?
COWELL: Probably when I was around seventeen. I lost my virginity to her. Actually, I can't remember telling her. But I'm sure I did.
ME: So when you sign off on the phone with Terri, how does that go? "Bye"?
COWELL: Yeah.
ME: No "Love you"?
COWELL: I can't remember, to be honest with you. Probably not. This tastes very good, by the way.
ME: I'll have one.
COWELL: I'm happy. I'm happy.

And so there we sit with our cigarettes. Already I know this about Cowell: When he wants to, he can clip his sentences to the nub and still keep a charmingly humorous twinkle in his voice. Also: Fairly intrusive questions don't throw him, and it may be impossible to pry secrets of a Freudian nature out of him, should they exist. Also: His girlfriend, perhaps, is more to be pitied than envied. Finally: He could well be a very, very bad man and not even know it. I think this while exhaling smoke and wondering what's behind some of the things he says and does.

* * * *

While delivering mail at EMI, the seventeen-year-old Cowell began pestering one higher-up after another for a better job. He drove his bosses crazy until he got his way. Eventually, he joined forces with a friend at EMI to start an in-house label called Fanfare. Suddenly, he was a bona fide record producer -- albeit one without an artist to produce. One night, however, out at a club in Mayfair, he was introduced to a smoking-hot disco-and-dance singer named Sinitta. Sinitta wanted to make a record, Cowell wanted to make Sinitta, and both got their way: In 1988, on the Fanfare label, Cowell's new girlfriend released a record called So Macho, which turned into a million-copy-selling hit and earned Cowell a $1.5 million bundle. Alas, in 1989, he sold his company and, in a financial snafu, lost everything he had, including his house and his fancy Porsche 911 Cabriolet. He went back to Abbots Meade to live with his folks and contemplate his future.

* * * *

ME: What's the most difficult emotion for you to express to another person?
COWELL: Baby talk, that ghastly sort of baby talk boyfriends and girlfriends do.
ME: Does Terri have a pet name for you?
COWELL: She does, actually. She's started to call me Pumpkin. What am I supposed to call her in return? Bubbles?