Simon Cowell expresses his contentment in having pursued mental health therapy.
Simon Cowell expresses regret for postponing his initial foray into mental health counseling until this stage of his life.
The creator of America’s Got Talent, aged 63, opens up about his experience on an episode of The Mirror’s Men in Mind podcast, a collaboration with the mental health organization Mind. He acknowledges that “COVID was the true catalyst” for his struggle with depression.
“Over the years, I’ve battled with depression… but I always chalked it up to being part of my personality. I experienced low points and handled it as a part of life,” Cowell reflects.
Elaborating, Cowell admits, “I truly wish I had taken this step a decade or two ago… It feels as though a burden has lifted.” He attributes the profoundly positive impact of therapy on his life. Therapy even prompted him to prohibit his staff from sharing television ratings for his major shows—an aspect he had excessively fixated on in the past.
The music mogul describes how the COVID-19 pandemic left him in a state of constant anxiety.
“In the initial phases, some of my friends fell seriously ill [due to COVID], and I mean severely,” he recollects.
He adds, “So, I thought, ‘If I contract this, perhaps Eric, Lauren, and I will face the same fate,'” referring to his 9-year-old son Eric and fiancée Lauren Silverman.
The incessant influx of news worsened his fears. Cowell explains, “I couldn’t distinguish between fact and fiction; I was clueless, apart from being consumed by the dread of catching the virus. Utterly consumed.”
Despite eventually contracting COVID during this tumultuous period, his case was relatively mild. As the world gradually reopened, he began seeking avenues to bolster his mental well-being.
“It gave me an opportunity to ponder aspects in a manner I never had before,” Cowell tells The Mirror. “And as things started to settle down a bit, it was as though I had to transition from that state to reentering the real world. How did I feel about that? That’s when the topic of mental health started cropping up more frequently.”
Cowell, who identifies as “inherently curious,” recounts his journey into understanding mental health after receiving endorsements from friends who had benefited from counseling.
“That’s when it struck me—while I’ve taken relatively good care of my body through diet, exercise, and such, I haven’t addressed my brain and mental well-being. What have I done about that? The answer was clear: nothing. And now seemed like the perfect time to change that. It was like sending my mind to the gym,” he elucidates.
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