Simon Cowell Opens Up On Therapy, Regrets Not Starting Sooner

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31st Aug, 2023. 02:10 am
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Simon Cowell regrets not seeking mental health counseling earlier in life and acknowledges that he should have started therapy long ago.

During an episode of The Mirror’s Men in Mind podcast, which collaborates with mental health organization Mind, the 63-year-old creator of America’s Got Talent shared his journey. He attributed the catalyst for addressing his depression to the impact of COVID-19. He mentioned, “I’ve suffered from depression over the years… but that was just something I just thought, ‘Well, that’s my character trait. I get down,’ and it’s something you deal with,” Cowell later said.

Expressing his regret, Cowell explained, “I wish I had done this 10 or 20 years ago…it’s like a weight has lifted off my shoulders.” He emphasized the profoundly positive impact therapy had on his life. Interestingly, therapy influenced him to prohibit his staff from sharing TV ratings for his major shows, a focus he now realizes had been overly consuming in the past.

Cowell discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic triggered persistent anxiety within him. He recounted moments when close friends fell seriously ill with COVID-19, sparking concerns about the same fate for himself, his 9-year-old son Eric, and his fiancée Lauren Silverman.

The barrage of news updates during the pandemic only intensified his anxiety. Cowell admitted, “I didn’t know what was true or not, I just didn’t have a clue other than I was petrified about catching it. Just petrified.”

Although Cowell himself contracted COVID-19 during this distressing period, his case was relatively mild. However, as the world gradually reopened, he felt the need to improve his mental well-being.

Reflecting on this phase, he shared, “It gave me a time to reflect on things in a way I never would have done before… And as things started to calm down a bit, and it was almost like now I’ve got to go from there, back into the real world. How do I feel about that? And that’s when this whole notion of — I started to hear a lot more people talking about mental health.”

Being inherently curious, Cowell delved into reading about mental health after receiving endorsements from friends who benefited from counseling. He realized that while he had taken care of his physical health through diet and exercise, he had overlooked his mental well-being. This realization motivated him to embrace therapy, comparing it to training his mind, saying, “So it was almost like my head going to the gym.”

Simon Cowell Opens Up On Therapy, Regrets Not Starting Sooner

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