TV News
Cowell "appalled" by own comments
Wednesday 3 March 2010
In an interview with Piers Morgan, which will be broadcast on ITV1 on Saturday, Cowell said: "There's [sic] many, many times where I've watched the show back and I'm absolutely appalled.
"You do the show, you're not aware of what's happening in the room outside. You know, somebody just said: 'My dog Lassie died yesterday'. I'm in a bad mood and, you know, awful, and you see it in that context, it's very, very difficult to watch.
"You become part of a mob and when you watch the show back you realise that you've gone too far."
During the interview, Cowell also said that he had initially failed to give 'Britain's Got Talent' runner-up Susan Boyle enough support as she tried to cope with her newfound fame following her audition.
He said: "I don't think that for one second when I saw that [audition] tape that any of us suddenly went: 'What are the repercussions for her?'.
"You actually assume, naively, that everything's going to work the way that she's wanted it to. And then in the middle of the live shows - and it was quite public - what happened is that she buckled under the pressure.
"That's when you suddenly realise: 'I haven't thought about this person as a human being'. And it was a real wake up call I've got to tell you."
Cowell told Morgan that he gave Boyle the chance to leave the show.
He said: "I brought her into my dressing room on the Friday and basically said to her: 'Look, I don't know what you believe you have to do or don't have to do, but you have a choice at this point and if you want to leave the show, you can still walk away, you know, proud for what you've achieved. But if this is too much, we're going to support you on this decision'.
"But there was absolutely no way she was going to leave this competition and I made it clear to her at that point.
"I said: 'Susan, you've got to understand, you may not win this'. And she looked me in the eye and said: 'Simon, I want to compete, I want to take part in the competition. I want to prove all the people wrong who doubted me'."
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