One of Simon Cowell's colleagues was asked the other day what she wanted to buy him for his recent birthday, reports The Mail on Sunday. Her answer: "Sunglasses with a mirror on the inside, because he's so vain."
Cowell, the highest paid presenter on American TV and the creator of Britain's most popular reality show, The X Factor, admits he's vain. "I've had my teeth fixed, I'm obsessed with my weight, I like to look good." He's had botox, though not surgery, he says, and he doesn't dye his hair.
I like the sound of Cowell. He's "unashamedly flash" with houses in LA and London, a fleet of cars (including a Bugatti Veyron, a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coup, a Ferrari, an Aston Martin DB9, a Jaguar XKR and a Mini Cooper), and a fortune of £122 million. But he's modest, doesn't take himself too seriously ("I've never been cool. And I don't care. I hate all that 'I'm so cool, I've got so much integrity' stuff. Get over yourselves"), hardly ever listens to the thing which has made him his millions music and says he'll always be a smoker. ("I'm down to 15 a day, but I actually love smoking.")
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And now we learn that though he's dumped his girlfriend, Terri Seymour, he's bought her a three-bedroom, $2.3m house in Hollywood, complete with swimming pool, and given her a 'golden goodbye' cash payment of more than £3 million. Lucky girl.
Marriage doesn't interest Cowell. At 49, says Alison Boshoff in the Daily Mail, he "likes his peace and quiet to wake up alone, be brought the same breakfast of porridge and fruit by his housekeeper". "He doesn't need a wife," says a former employee. "He is already married to the only person he really loves. Himself." Well, he admits his vanity: I suspect this remark would just make him laugh.
Obama's obsessions
Here, from a list in The Daily Telegraph, are ten things you may not know about Barack Obama:
His favourite meal is his wife Michelle's shrimp linguine.
He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali.
His favourite snacks are chocolate-coloured protein bars.
He ate dog meat, snake meat and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia.
His favourite drink is black-forest berry iced tea.
He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president, but didn't.
He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol, but took both marijuana and cocaine while a teenager.
His house in Chicago has four fireplaces.
He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid SUV, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300 saloon.
He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber who charges $21.
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