Simon Cowell’s son Eric is reportedly helping his famous dad quit smoking with a very clever trick.
The 63-year-old music mogul has cut down on the cigarettes in recent years, but at one point admitted he smoked up to 80 a day.
The X Factor bosses were literally fuming when he sparked up inside the studios – opting to pay a £100 fine every time he did it, rather than step outside.
But Eric’s godmother Sinitta – who used to date Simon back in the Eighties – has revealed Simon is now close to packing up the habit for good.
The Right Back Where We Started singer shared Eric had become the ‘cigarette police’ and only allows Simon one puff on a cigarette before he has to stub it out.
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The 58-year-old told The Sun : “He [Eric] follows him around and only allows Simon to have one puff of a cigarette. He always says ‘how many puffs, how many puffs’. Eric is like a little cigarette police and keeps him on his toes.”
Sinitta said the problem with Simon is he actually enjoys smoking – and he has even been seen vaping in recent years.
She continued: “He doesn’t see himself as addicted because he says he can cut down whenever he wants.
“He probably smokes one cigarette, maybe two a day. But what he does is light one cigarette and has one puff and puts it out – he does that multiple times during the day.”
Simon’s son Eric, who he shares with his US socialite fiancée Lauren Silverman, is now eight years old.
Ever since he was born, Simon has been saying he wants to quit the cigs to live a healthier lifestyle.
But the music boss seems to have unable to stick to quitting so far – and once said life wouldn’t be worth living if he wasn’t able to light up.
“If I tried to cut out cigarettes completely, I would have a real problem: too boring," he shared.
"It's the same with drinking. I'm pretty good at cutting back when I need to."
He added: "I'm not going to lie – whenever I'm seen out it's with a cigarette and a beer in my hand. So I think I've been rumbled as far as that goes."
The Britain’s Got Talent judge had a ‘wake-up call’ in 2017 when he slipped and fell down a whole flight of stairs at his London home.
At the time he said he was “working flat out” which probably caused him to smoke more.
In the past two years Simon has also been involved in two bike crashes, including one which broke his back in Los Angeles.
Earlier this year sources close to Simon exclusively told The Mirror he was slowing down so he could spend more time with his family - and be around to see Eric grow up.
The pal said: “He doesn’t want to work at that pace anymore. His back injury from the bike accident in 2020 and the pandemic have made him refocus his life - and Simon knows he is not getting any younger.
“The days of staying up working until 3am and constantly being on his phone trying to make deals are gone forever.
“Someone like Simon will find it hard to let go and not work but for him this is like edging into a kind of semi-retirement. He won’t be working every day and will pick and choose his work a lot more going forward.”
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