“Saturday nights with my future Olympian. I think I finally found someone who likes practice more than I did.”
During an interview with ITV’s This Morning, “America’s Got Talent” judge Simon Cowell opened up about being a parent to a now 11-year-old son.
Cowell and his partner Lauren Silverman share son, Eric Cowell.
And as his son continues to get older, Cowell admitted that he’s getting more and more nervous about an upcoming milestone, giving Eric his first cell phone.
For Cowell, giving Eric a phone means giving his son “access to anything," according to People.
"I’m very worried, Jeff, about how much kids can see at a certain age," Cowell told ITV’s Jeff Brazier. "I grew up ... learning things at the right time, the right age, etcetera, etcetera. I just would be petrified of him having access to anything that would really worry me."
In addition to worrying about giving Eric too much information too soon, Cowell opened up about one of the lessons his mom bestowed upon him that he will also bestow upon Eric.
"My mom used to say, manners make the man, and my dad was very good about respecting other people, and I’m trying to do the same thing with him," Cowell continued. "Don’t make it overcomplicated, you know? Find your path, be happy, [and] be respectful to other people."
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Cowell has often discussed his love of being a dad to Eric.
He told Brazier that fatherhood is “the best thing to ever happen to ever happen” to him “out of everything I’ve ever done in my life.”
"The very first time I saw his scan, I was literally obsessed,” Cowell recalled When he was a baby, because they don’t really do anything, I’m like, ‘Well why doesn’t he like me?’ and Lauren was going, ‘He’s a baby’ and I didn’t understand that. Then, at about a year and a half, we started to communicate, that was magic."
But despite saying Eric is the reason for Cowell finding his “softer” side, that doesn’t mean Eric will get a free pass from his father’s infamous judgement for talent.
“If Eric said to me, ‘I want to be a singer’ and he couldn’t sing, I would be absolutely honest with him,” Cowell admitted, according to the Daily Star. “If he couldn’t, I would say, ‘You know what, be a drummer’.”
However, Cowell is confident he won’t have to have that conversation because at just 11 years old, Eric is already proving his has musical talent.
“Eric actually can play the drums well but he’s quite shy. I walk and I hear him, and he stops. I say, ‘Why are you stopping?’ and he says, ‘Well, I’m a bit embarrassed’ and I say, ‘Well don’t be, you’re really good.’”
