SIMON Cowell had a sensational secret affair with X Factor judge Dannii
Minogue, The Sun can reveal.
The TV mogul, 52, confessed they were lovers when they worked on the show.
He admitted: “I had a crush. It was genuine love.”
And he reveals he lusted after Cheryl Cole and wanted to bed her, too, when
his feelings for Dannii cooled.
The astonishing revelations are made in a book published next month called
Sweet Revenge – The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell, by acclaimed biographer
Tom Bower.
This week, the blockbuster is exclusively serialised in The Sun.
Canny Sharon Osbourne twigged Simon Cowell’s big secret — he was sleeping with
Dannii Minogue.
Sharon was on the tarmac in a private plane with fellow X Factor judge Louis
Walsh watching the TV puppet-master and his new plaything climb aboard a
bigger jet.
She jabbed her finger at the window and said knowingly: “They’re having it
off.”
Cowell denied her allegation at the time, but he has since confessed to a
clandestine affair.
He said: “I had a crush on her. It was Dannii’s hair, the sexy clothes and the
t**s. I was like a schoolboy.
“She was foxy. She was a real man’s girl. Very feminine.”
Cowell loved the conquest of a beautiful star who was also fun on the
programme. But secrecy, he knew, was vital.
When he was photographed holding Minogue’s hand in the back of a limousine as
they left BBC studios, most speculated that it had been engineered to bring
another headline.
He admitted later: “It was genuine love.”
But there were limits. To his surprise, he found Dannii occasionally gloomy.
Cowell reflected: “After Terri Seymour, I wasn’t ready for another
relationship.”
He had recently split from girlfriend Terri after six years.
Author Tom Bower reveals in his new book that for Cowell, the sport began
in April 2007 when new judges Dannii and Brian Friedman were confirmed for
the X Factor.
He took great pleasure in changing the line-up. He loved playing with women,
especially his judges. He grinned and said of Dannii: “She’ll be the new
toy.”
But by mid-August, playing with his X Factor toys was providing even more fun
than he anticipated.
Not only was he enjoying a fling with Dannii, 40, but suspicions over their
closeness had sparked a judges’ war.
He rejoiced: “Dannii and Sharon Osbourne are at loggerheads. When I sit next
to one, the other sulks. I have to try to give each one equal attention.”
To generate more tension, he slanted towards Dannii, describing Sharon, 59, as
the “queen bee” who disliked the younger judge “strutting around as if she
owns the place”.
To Cowell, Sharon’s outbursts were great sport. He revealed publicly: “I often
ogle Dannii’s bum” — knowing Sharon was irritated by the Aussie singer’s
flirty and frequent visits to his dressing room.
Just why Sharon cared about their fling was hard for Cowell to understand.
But he gladly stoked the fire by back-stabbing and spreading rumours about her
family and large entourage.
Provoked into retaliation, she delivered some dramatic spoilers during the X
Factor and regularly screamed: “Fix!”
Cowell said: “That’s great TV — but it’s creating a daily drama for people
management.”
He despatched producers to Sharon’s dressing room to “douse the fire and calm
her down”, urging them: “You tell her it’s not good enough.”
She cursed back: “It’s all fixed, so who the f*** cares?”
In October, Sharon arrived for a live programme on her rival’s birthday,
angling for a showdown. She’d been tipped off that Dannii had made jibes
about her plastic surgery.
She barged into Dannii’s dressing room. “Happy birthday,” she snarled — then
began to rant at her. Within seconds, the Australian was crying.
As her make-up disintegrated, producers intervened.
“F*** off,” screamed Sharon. And five minutes before the show went out she
added: “I’m quitting.” She was shepherded into the studio with moments to
spare.
Nearby, Cowell sat in his room. He said: “I wasn’t happy about it, but I
didn’t come out because I didn’t want to get involved.” Then he grinned and
said: “I find girls fighting very amusing.
“The competition adds spice to the show, and the show is about the judges, not
the contestants. Everyone is enjoying playing with the new toy.”
Cowell’s reward to himself for the battle between the girls was a new £20,000
luxury dressing room at the show’s Wembley studios which he paid for out of
his own pocket.
From then on, one hour before the programme, while mayhem and screaming raged
beneath him, Cowell would be soaking in a large hot bath watching Strictly
Come Dancing “to wind me up to do better”.
Louis Walsh had sided with Sharon in the battle and on one live show sniped at
Dannii: “You’ve never had a hit.”
Afterwards Louis was summoned to Cowell’s room for a dressing down and found
Dannii there sobbing. He believed the TV guru had actually loved the snub
and was merely acting to please his lover.
Cowell smiled and said: “Well, it mustn’t happen again.”
Then he got up to give his hair a quick wash and then blow-dried it in front
of the mirror while his visitors looked on.
“He tilts his head just like a woman,” thought Louis. “Anyway, it’s all for
show. We love slagging each other off and we try to out-bitch one another.”
The bust-ups raised the tension for the final on Saturday 15 December.
“Sharon’s an old witch,” said Dannii in a loud whisper overheard by the
studio audience during a break in the show. Cowell grinned and said: “That
was wonderful, better than the singing.”
As planned, Sharon was tipping towards an explosion. After the final show of
2007, she issued an ultimatum: She would leave unless Cowell fired Dannii.
He refused.
He had already lined up Cheryl Cole to take her place.
She joined for £600,000, £100,000 more than Dannii.
Cowell thought: “Now we’ve got two toys on the panel.”
But his affair with Dannii was over. He told a pal: “There were a few bonks
and then it petered out while I was in America.”
This month Dannii — on The X Factor from 2007 to 2010 — split from Kris Smith,
33, the father of her 21-month-old son Ethan, after four years.
As recently as last year Cowell also tried to sleep with Dannii’s Aussie pal,
pop star and actress Natalie Imbruglia, 37. Bower reveals in his book that
Cowell invited her to stay on his yacht Slipstream, where the two hoped to
renew their relationship after a previous steamy encounter.
He picked the sexy singer up on the Italian island of Capri.
But within hours of her hopping on board, Cowell’s female friends were
puzzled.
One whispered: “Natalie’s not very interesting.”
Cowell’s charisma and fame, she knew, often overpowered the women he dated,
not least because he rarely chased self-confident women who could resist the
attractions of celebrity. Natalie, Cowell thought, was among the few who
could spark something real.
Instead, unsure about her host’s intentions and his unwillingness to offer a
relationship, she decided after four days to disembark.
“It didn’t go anywhere,” Cowell’s close friend on the yacht, Lauren Silverman
concluded.
“Just a K&C,” agreed another pal — meaning a kiss and a cuddle.
Cowell laughed as the boat sailed on to its next destination and said. “I
wanted another fling, and she didn’t.”
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