Simon Cowell Becomes Unlikely Spokesperson for Therapy
Simon Cowell has been in the public eye for decades, first as a judge on American Idol and more recently as a judge on America's Got Talent, but he hasn't exactly been an open book. Which is why it may come as a surprise to some fans that he's now speaking out about his mental health.
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“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 said in a recent interview with The Mirror's "Men in Mind" podcast.
Earlier in the conversation, he explained that COVID-19 was the "catalyst" for him to start thinking more critically about his mental health. Prior to the pandemic, he said, "If you’d said to me, ‘Simon, we’re going to be sitting down … in your garden, talking about mental health,’ I’d be going, ‘Have I lost my mind or something?'" But the anxiety he experienced during the worst of the pandemic shifted something in him, and he started talking to friends about therapy.
"I thought, you know what? I’ve kind of looked after my body—through diet, exercise, whatever—pretty well over the years. But what have I done about my brain and my mind?" he said. "...So it was almost like my head going to the gym."
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He further noted that young Simon might have scoffed at the idea of going to therapy, recalling that when he watched American dramas as a kid in the U.K., he thought all the shrink talk was "over the top."
"As a Brit, I just couldn’t relate to it any way whatsoever. So I never took [therapy] seriously, to be honest with you."
Now, he wishes he had started seeing a therapist sooner. "It was just like this massive load lifting off my shoulders," he said. “Now I am happy to talk about it to encourage others too.”
Next, Simon Cowell Reveals His 16 Most Memorable America's & Britain's Got Talent Auditions