Simon Cowell Had Nervous Breakdown This Summer: Report

Simon Cowell reportedly had a breakdown this summer during X Factor auditions because his high-stress lifestyle transformed him into a “weird vampire.”

According to the The Sun of London:

Simon Cowell suffered a devastating collapse this summer as the strains of his professional and personal life became too much…Stricken Simon had to be put on a strict detox regime to give him the strength to battle his “demons”.

Under doctor’s orders, he apparently gave up smoking, but also stop consuming supplements.

Simon Cowell, 52, apparently had to take three weeks off from the show, including one week of bed rest during which he was cut off “from friends, colleagues, and even the demands of top TV executives,” as a result of nervous exhaustion. These claims are set forth in an updated chapter of the Cowell biography Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell by Tom Bower.

According to the book, the opinionated and blunt X Factor judge told a friend that:

“I desperately need peace. I’m craving normality. I’ve got to work out my demons and come out of it…I had to stop reading texts at three in the morning and making calls later and later.”

Cowell was a judge on Pop Idol in the UK and then American Idol in the US. He left American Idol in 2010 to concentrate on the X Factor which is also a British import created by his production company Syco and sold to the Fox Network.

If this account of Cowell’s alleged secret breakdown is true, it would be understandable that a doctor would tell him to quit smoking and get some sleep. But why go off vitamins and nutritional supplements?