Simon says

To his critics, he's guilty of turning pop into factory farming, mocking the afflicted, skewing the values of a generation. To his fans, he is an entertainer, plus a great British success story. And to himself? Emma Brockes hops in the back of Simon Cowell's stretch Rolls-Royce (with extra stretch) to ask him who the hell he thinks he is

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  'I don't like that word "sneer". And I think if we go too far, then I don't like myself.'
  Simon Cowell is on the terrace of his rented house in LA. In front of him, a makeshift studio has been set up to broadcast back-to-back interviews with scores of local TV stations; behind, an infinity pool flows over the edge of the property, beyond which stretch views across Hollywood and beyond. Everything is beige, white, sandstone and glass, the surfaces clean, the colours neutral. All afternoon he has ploughed through the script for the latest addition to his franchise, the X Factor USA. "The thing about it is, Heather, I want a star in the real world, not just in this audition." "The show has attitude. Most people who watched it said they weren't expecting that." "This is a much rawer, edgier show." "It's been the most fun I've had in years." "I left American Idol to do this because I think this is a better show." "Nicole is, in my opinion, probably crazier than Paula." "I actually think she's madder than Paula." "Bye, sweetheart." "I'm good, Heidi, how are you?" Cowell was at the X Factor premiere party until 4am, but you wouldn't know it. He is, as he seems always to be, laconic, sardonic, vaguely incredulous, as if confronting a bizarre set of circumstances he has had no part in creating. He is also very – almost archly – polite. After the interviews, we get in his famous Rolls-Royce Phantom stretch, which has extra stretch built in, to drive to CNN for an interview with Piers Morgan. He takes two bottles of Fiji water from a compartment inside the arm rest, twists off the caps and hands one to me. "Things do get a bit repetitive," he says. He isn't wrong. Local versions of X Factor and Cowell's other juggernaut show, the Got Talent franchise, dominate the TV schedules in more than 44 countries, with X Factor holding number one position in 15 of them. The singing show has worldwide audiences of more than 100m and has sold in the region of 100m records by artists it has launched. Syco, Cowell's British-based production company which co-produces the shows, accounts for a staggering 70% of Sony UK's profits. Every year, Cowell's reach into new markets seems only to grow. And now X Factor in the US. The night before I meet Cowell, the first two shows were played in a movie theatre in Hollywood for an invited audience of 1,000. To anyone who has seen the UK version, the product was instantly familiar – glossy, slick, businesslike in the setup of the various narratives that will dominate the series: the rapper with the great voice who is a few months out of rehab; the single mum survivor of an abusive relationship whose ex told her she was too old to be a star; the 13-year-old who sounds and acts like a 30-year-old; and, for "balance", a couple of unhappy creatures about to be stripped of their delusions. No matter how inured you are to all this, it is so well put together, so supremely well-edited, that there is almost no way to resist it. "We gotcha," Cowell says when I report being sucked right in, and smiles. "It got me as well." Cowell doesn't go into anything expecting it to fail. But the scale of his success with X Factor and its stable mates has put him in the weird position of having, after the fact, to come up with a defence of his extraordinary influence over popular culture. To his critics, he is guilty, variously, of turning pop into factory farming, mocking the afflicted and contributing to the skewed values of a generation for whom the only worthwhile goal in life is to be rich and on TV. To his fans, he has created great entertainment and a successful British export, although the format of his shows has itself suffered from success. Contestants as young as 12 now understand the concept of a strong "back story" and talk about their lives in those terms. "I once had a guy," Cowell says, "who came rushing out on stage and literally shouted, 'I've got cancer!' Like it was great news. He was so happy that he had a sad story." On the evidence of the first two shows, Cowell has taken to heart some of the X Factor critiques – that it leads on the desperate and confused, putting them on TV to be sneered at. "I know what you mean," he says. "I don't like that word 'sneer'. And I think if we go too far, then I don't like myself. I like to think I'm as open-minded as anybody else." The way Cowell talks about himself, his very personality runs on free-market principles, wherein warring elements compete and sometimes the baser ones prosper. In the new X Factor, the ratio of hopeless to talented auditionees tips vastly in favour of the latter, and as a result it is a warmer, more palatable show, although there is still too much screaming. "I understand the influence we have. I'm also trying to think of it as an entertainment show. Nothing is ever done too maliciously. I know sometimes we cross the line. We've had people who've come on and within five seconds we've said, 'Don't even go there. Too fragile.' " You have a duty of care? "I learned that with Susan Boyle. I remember the day after she came second and had that awful meltdown and I genuinely thought, 'Maybe we have failed here. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this.' But she wasn't a happy person." 'Of course I feel bad,' Cowell says of his decision to replace Cheryl Cole on X Factor USA, 'but when you produce the show, you have to make decisions in the moment.' Photograph: Rex The person who comes out of the new X Factor looking unhappiest isn't a contestant, but Cheryl Cole, present in the first 20 minutes as a judge alongside Cowell, Paula Abdul and, the biggest get for the panel, LA Reid, former CEO of Island Def Jam and the man responsible for signing Jay-Z, Kanye West and Mariah Carey. In this company, Cole looks wide-eyed and insubstantial, and is clearly so baffling to the American audience that when she is replaced halfway through, by Nicole Scherzinger, the former Pussycat Doll, her involvement has barely registered. "Of course I feel bad," Cowell says, "but when you produce the show, you have to make decisions in the moment. They're not personal decisions. You do what you think is right for the show and the shows around the world. It wasn't just me; everyone was saying it. She just didn't look as comfortable as on the UK show." She looked intimidated. "Bewildered, I think. She wasn't bad, she just wasn't herself. I had Peter Fincham [director of television for ITV] on the phone saying, 'We'll have her back, we'll pay her more money' and I'm thinking maybe this is the right solution and then everybody's happy. We nearly did a deal and then it didn't work out." Did it feel like a personal failure? "As a producer, you have to separate friendship and production. The only thing we did do was to make a conscious effort that she was packaged as the number one pop star in the UK, so she could look back and say I was at least treated respectfully in the opening episode." Loyalty is a big thing with Cowell. He has relationships with the 30-odd people who work with him at Syco that go back decades and is reputed to be a fair employer. His "honesty" has become stylised as part of his judging shtick, but he is, say some of those who work for him, genuinely the kind of boss who encourages staff from the doorman upwards to come to him if they have an idea. Although he prefers the American way of doing business and spends most of his time in LA, the culture of his company is resoundingly British. It's practically a psychological necessity, he says. "When someone asks, 'Does success make you into a monster?' I always say, 'No, it enables you to be a monster.' Because you are a monster in the beginning. Now you have what is perceived as power, you just become a dick. That's why you have to have the right people around you. I have a lot of people who work for me who come from the north of England – very different mentality from London. More grounded. You need that kind of balance around you. You have your own moral compass inside, anyway, when you know you're behaving unreasonably or feeling sorry for yourself." The British attitude to wealth is one of the least attractive things about his home country, Cowell says. He has talked in the past of being motivated purely by profit, and I wonder where he draws the line. If a great opportunity presented itself in the porn industry, for example, would he grab it with both hands? He laughs heartily. "We're not going to be making Syco porn movies. Not for public viewing, anyway." He is also too canny to be caught, Gerald Ratner-like, in admitting to knowingly pushing crap, although he did once say he wouldn't be seen dead at the live concerts of some of the artists American Idol has produced. He hates sloppy production and is "fanatical" about detail – "I will agonise over whether to have a matt floor or a shiny floor in the X Factor studio." In the early hours of every morning, he is on the phone to international affiliates, monitoring Syco productions across the globe and, in one case, flying to a country and pulling their version of X Factor because it didn't meet his standards. He won't say which country, but they were given a year to shape up, which they did. When he runs out of countries to flog the format to, he says, "We'll sell it on the moon." It is this, his status as an exporter of British products, that seems to give Cowell the biggest buzz. "The country you live in has to be motivated by success," he says. "When you start getting resentful, and hating people who are successful, you're going to have problems. People should be motivated by earning money. Because that's in our DNA. Our history, going back hundreds of years, was manufacturing. We had companies all over the world, and it was that pioneering entrepreneurial spirit that made Britain fantastic. Now you've got a new breed coming from China and India, and they want to make their lives better and they're killing us. So whether it's me personally or anyone else who wants to make more money, I've always encouraged it. If my company makes money, we pay tax, we export. I'm not ashamed of that. "I'm going to give all my money away, eventually. I don't believe in all this hand-down stuff. Even if I had kids, I don't think I'd want to give them everything. The best time I had in my life, genuinely, was the discovery process. When you get your first pay cheque, it's the best feeling in the world." Cowell grew up in Elstree in Hertfordshire. His father was an executive at EMI. As a teenager, he made money mowing lawns and doing chores. His parents would pay for the family holidays, but tell the kids to earn their own spending money. Cowell's first job was in the post room at his father's company, after which he became an A&R man and set up his first company, a record label that had a few hits but went bust in 1989 when, famously, he had to move back into his parents' house. Given how important success is to Cowell, he should by rights have had a breakdown, but merely says of that period, "It was like shedding everything; quite liberating. A good lesson." When he became a judge on Pop Idol, he was a record company executive again. He wanted to set up a TV company right then, he says, but didn't know how to go about it, so used Pop Idol as a kind of PhD programme. "I was a very good watcher and learner. I thought, 'I'm going to educate myself about how to make a show.' And I was more interested in that than being in the show. The camera people would say, 'Why are you asking so many questions?' and I said, 'Because I'm interested in how you do this.' And then I got the hang of it after a while." Idol's creator Simon Fuller, of course, sued Cowell when he left the show and created X Factor, but Cowell now downplays their rivalry; it's the younger guys coming up behind him that he's worried about: "You look down and see them nipping at your heels. This guy, Scooter, who manages Justin Bieber, is like a bomb. He's got so much enthusiasm and he's a workaholic and he's not going to stop. I look at people like that and think I'd rather work with you than compete." X Factor USA will be shown on, and make a lot of money for, the Fox network. I wonder if Cowell has considered the possibility that his phone was hacked by other outposts of the Murdoch empire. He smiles. "It crossed my mind." And? "A lot of the people there I knew. I… I… A lot of the people who you guys uncovered – it's difficult for me, because I knew them as friends. It's been a difficult time for me. I'd rather not know." If he found out he had been hacked, would he have a problem in continuing to work with Fox? "No, I wouldn't." Why? "I've worked for the company for years and they were very good to me. I don't condone what happened, but I've seen another side of these people. I've genuinely seen the kind side. The Sarah Payne thing I was very involved with, met her mum, and the people at the News Of The World – this was not publicity, it was a very personal relationship. There's good and bad in all of us. But I'm quite a forgiving person." Wouldn't he be angry if he discovered these people had hacked him? "I've been angry at loads of things. Not everybody's perfect. I know what I've done in my life. You try to find the balance. I think there's been worse things to get upset about." He gets out of the Rolls and goes into the studio for the next interview, thanking the driver and saying hello to each security guard and doorman on the way. Cowell with his on/off fiancee Mezhgan Hussainy. Is it true he pays some of his exes a sort of unofficial alimony? He bursts out laughing. 'Not all of them.' Photograph: Rex Like a lot of highly motivated people, Cowell's success is driven partly by what might be called kinks in his personality. Later, after CNN and the ride back home, we sit in his house and while he drinks ginger tea and smokes Kool cigarettes, he considers the cost of what he does. At 52, he has yet to marry; he either is or isn't engaged to Mezhgan Hussainy, his make-up artist girlfriend. He thinks he would probably be a good dad. He likes kids and is good with them. He intends to leave part of his fortune to a children's hospice with which he's involved. But he can't envisage having children of his own. "It's tough. I see what my brother does and he's younger than me. His weekends and week nights, everything is down to the minute, because he loves his kids and is very involved with them. I absolutely couldn't give that commitment. I'd end up with nannies looking after them and they wouldn't know who I was." Cowell tends to date beautiful women and stays friends with them after the relationship ends in a way that seems vaguely incredible. Is it true he pays some of his exes a sort of unofficial alimony? He bursts out laughing. "Not all of them. That's quite rare." More than one? "Probably, yeah. You can't have somebody in your life who's become accustomed to a certain thing, and just because you don't want to be in the relationship any more say to them, now everything is cut off. That doesn't make sense." Well, you can if you're not married. "You could. It's not alimony. It's, I believe, doing the right thing. And that comes back to me wanting them to be happy. You just can't do it too many times." He laughs again. He only recently realised that he is seriously claustrophobic, not just about space, but about everything. It suddenly made sense to him why he can't stand cluttered surfaces; why his houses need to be huge and airy; "I like the feeling that I'm never inside." It extends to relationships, too. He needs a lot of time alone and people tend to take it personally, until they get to know him better. He's an odd person. "I'm very odd. I am." He is subject to black moods that "come out of nowhere" but doesn't approve of antidepressants. ("Oh my God – the drugs numb everything and you end up in some sort of weird living coma, where you just don't care.") His mentor, Philip Green, saved him from one of his darker episodes a few years ago, he says. "What I was going through was just the inability to cope. I was trying to deal with everything – my business, the artists, the shows, everything – and didn't realise how difficult it was. He's incredibly well-meaning. And very kind. He became someone I could always go to. He makes you confront everything and find a solution." Cowell's ambition for Syco is to develop more shows that can be sold across the world. He has high hopes for a new cooking competition show to be launched next year. He would love, he says, to branch out into TV drama if someone came to him with an idea. A few days before we meet, the US finale of this year's America's Got Talent got an audience figure of 17m. That kind of success would satisfy most people but what drives Cowell is competitive spirit. "When someone talks about us having a 70% share of something, I'm thinking, what happened to the other 30%? It's an addiction. It doesn't matter how well you're doing, you're driven; this can't be the end, this can't be the ceiling." His other business idols are Clive Davis, chief creative officer at Sony, Doug Morris, the new head of Sony, and Bernie Ecclestone ("an incredible role model"). Alan Sugar? "He amuses me, because he loves being on TV so much – way more than I do. I would think he'd be very difficult to work with. He'll always want to be number one." Surely that describes Cowell, too. "I'm easy to work with once everyone knows the parameters. Philip once said to me, 'You twiddle the knobs and I'll do the deal.' In a rude way, he was right. Where it gets difficult is if you've got two people who want to do the same thing. And somebody has the right to make the final decision." Cowell talks a lot about apprenticeship. When he started out, he says, it struck him as completely reasonable that it might take him 20 years to get anywhere. Now people want things instantly. He won't even abbreviate in text messages. "I still put punctuation in my texts. If it's an 'I', I make sure it's a capital." Why? "I think it's important. Because I don't particularly like communication through text messages and certainly not email. I'm not even crazy about phone calls. I like to be with people one on one. That way I can make my point, or I can listen to what they've got to say." The first time his business went down, it was because, he says, he started to believe his own hype – "I believed in those days that I literally had the Midas touch" – and to invest in things he knew nothing about. He has been more cautious since. During the last economic bubble, he found himself at an investment event in a ballroom in London. "There were tonnes of hedge fund guys there, a month before the crash, and I was with a friend. And I said, 'You know what, I've got a really weird feeling about this place. Nothing here's tangible. It's like they're selling air. And I don't believe it. I don't feel good about this.' And I left." When Cowell talks sadly about the culture of shortening attention spans and young people's obsession with fame and materialism, it is with a detachment that enables him simultaneously to acknowledge the contribution his own shows have made to it. "When I was at school, there was no such thing as a designer watch, a designer trainer. It didn't exist. We had our first colour TV, and the neighbour came round to watch. And I couldn't care less. I didn't want anything quick. Everything along the way, even the bumps, was part of life. But now – and I'm part of the reason, I accept that – you've just got too many people, because of the lottery, because of the internet boom, wanting fame, who want to go from nought to 60 in an instant." The kind of thing that fed into the riots? "For sure." But if his shows contribute to that culture, doesn't he feel guilty? "I wouldn't say guilty. If I didn't do it, someone else would have done it. You could say the same thing about ATMs and the internet. It's part of society." There is only one possible follow-up to this: was he an admirer of Thatcher? "Yeah. Yeah. Again, it was tough love. Now when I listen to her – and I'm thinking now as a TV producer – I want to sit down with her and say, 'Right, change the patronising voice, the middle England BBC voice. I'm thinking there's a way of getting over your point without sounding like a schoolteacher." He has met David Cameron and found him charming, and Gordon Brown, too. Of course, when you're well known, Cowell says, "politicians are incredibly nice to you. I've never met a rude politician." I get up to leave and he walks me to the door. "And now I have a manicure," says Cowell who, if he knows anything, knows the value of playing up to one's image. "Maintenance is a bitch." And he turns and disappears up the khaki stone staircase.