Simon Cowell reveals his bizarre daily habits in new docuseries

Whilst Simon Cowell’s TV project The Next Act is ostensibly about the music mogul’s search for a new boyband, the glimpses of his home life are the real scene stealers.

The Netflix docuseries, which dropped on Wednesday, follows the X Factor tycoon’s nationwide search for a new pop act, as he resurrects the talent show auditions and bootcamps format from his prime.

But cannily Simon has mixed up the tried and tested TV formula by drip-feeding fans insight into his own life, shifting his relationships with fiancee Lauren Silverman and son Eric, 11, further into the spotlight.

Cameras follow the family from their vast West London home to their Barbados villa and $24million Malibu compond.

Each home is a beacon of minimalism, thanks to Simon’s hatred of clutter, and cleanliness – he’s allergic to dust mites, whilst teams of housekeepers, drivers and chefs make sure the routine-obsessed star’s life runs like clockwork.

Lauren is heard saying in an early episode ‘his routines drive me nuts but a leopard doesn’t change its spots does it?’

Simon’s strict diet is also on show in the series. He famously went on an extreme health kick after breaking his back in a 2020 bike accident.

Back then he claimed that dieticians told him his diet was ‘the worst they’d ever seen’ leading him to slash his calorie intake to fewer than 1,000 a day, alongside a new exercise regimen which demands 600 push ups daily.

Simon sticks to the same meals every day, including his favourite green, protein smoothies for breakfast and half a crumpet for lunch. 

In the show he is seen commenting on Lauren’s plate of salad – prepared by Simon’s chef, Geoff – saying: ‘This is how differently we eat’ before buttering his crumpet, adding: ‘I have to eat half of this now and the other half for dinner.’ 

Simon’s habit of cutting his portions in half extrends to beers. He drinks four 90-calorie beers a day, but pours half the beer out to make it a shandy.

His love of sleep and his five year health kick marry up as Simon revealed this week that he sits down for dinner at 4:30pm, has a late night then wakes at 10am so ‘I can go 17 hours without eating: Intermittent fasting.’

He may be a workaholic but Simon despises an early monring.

Episode one of The Next Act shows his team in a quiet panic when they have to get him out of his hotel at 7:45am to make a radio breakfast show interview.

Simon’s housekeeper, who has travelled with him to his London hotel, is seen trying to keep the mood serene as she ushers in his hair stylist to get to work on her yawning boss. 

‘My brain just doesn’t function like this’ Simon complains as he leans back in the makeup artist’s chair for a micro nap.

When it comes to his morning routine, Simon makes things simple for himself, confessing that he’s stuck to the same style of Armani jeans for years, and his wardrobe is full of 200 identical charcoal grey Derek Rose T-shirts.

He also wears box-fresh underwear every day. 

When it comes to cleaniness what Simon says goes, with Lauren seen getting frustrated when she can’t find the kitchen roll which her partner insists the chef keeps hidden away. 

His hatred of clutter includes flowers. ‘I get a lot of flowers for someone who doesn’t like flowers,’ he tells the cameras on his birthday when tens of bouquets are delivered.

In fact, Simon hates birthdays. ‘He has this real aversion to birthdays and particularly his own. He does not like birthdays, not just his birthday, anybody’s birthday,’ Lauren reveals as his team break out into a nervous chorus of happy birthday.

That team of house staff and assistants mean the star is out of touch with every day duties, such as dialling a phone.

Episode two opens with Lauren giving a phone number to her partner only for a flummoxed Simon to ask ‘and then what do I do?’

‘As in how do you dial the number?’ Lauren asks. ‘This is what I deal with, he doesn’t even know how to use a phone’.