Simon Cowell ‘Not Proud’ of Affair With Friend’s Wife – Will Their Relationship Work?

The new parents. (Getty Images)

Simon Cowell’s love life took center stage back in 2013, when news broke that the music mogul had been having a steamy affair with the wife of his friend, property developer Andrew Silverman. Their undercover relationship became public, and Cowell’s life dramatically changed, after it was revealed that the then Mrs. Lauren Silverman was pregnant with his child. And, according to a new interview with The Daily Mail, no one was more surprised than Cowell himself: The X Factor creator was in a meeting with ITV executives when he was called out of the room by an assistant, who told him only that his girlfriend needed to speak to him urgently.

“This was not something I planned,” Cowell admitted to the publication. “But I remember going to the first scan with Lauren. I called him Tad because he looked like a tadpole. Something just kicked in. I felt unbelievably protective of both of them. I absolutely wanted him, I just hadn’t known that before.”

Of the affair that led to his now 21-month-old son, Eric, Cowell candidly says, “I’m not proud of the circumstances. I can’t hold my head up about it. But we have all moved on.” Lauren’s now ex-husband, Andrew (the couple divorced in 2013), is now engaged to Samantha Zimmerman, the widow of Bear Stearns executive Matthew Zimmerman, and Lauren travels to and from New York weekly to spend time with Adam, the son she and Andrew share.

Related: The Unintended Effects of Divorce on Kids

Cowell, who once upon a time was known as much for his flashy lifestyle and parade of gorgeous girlfriends as he was for his work in the music industry, now describes himself as “not a conventional dad but then I’m not a conventional man. I adore my son. We make each other laugh.”

“Look,” he explained, “the reality is I could have become a monster. I remember being in my 20s and seeing guys in nightclubs in their 60s in ridiculous suits and thinking, ‘God, I hope that won’t be me,’ and then … If I’d become a Hugh Hefner type, that would have been sad.”

And while wedding bells aren’t in the near future for the now publicly happy new parents, Cowell tells The Daily Mail that they do want more children and have even gone so far as to pick out a girl’s name.

But can a couple, albeit a beautiful, rich, and famous one, that got their start from a bout of infidelity really make it for the long haul? The pair has certainly “dropped an extra challenge into that relationship,” psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and author Gail Saltz, M.D., tells Yahoo Health. “When a relationship starts with infidelity, it certainly impacts trust all around. It’s not necessarily the end of the story, and it doesn’t mean that it won’t be able to work, to last, but certainly it is in the mix, the thought that either of you are willing to cross that line, morally speaking.“

Related: New Study Reveals Who’s More Likely to Cheat in a Relationship

“What I think it means is that each is going to have to work harder to show the other that they are trustworthy, that they are committed,” Saltz says, adding that despite the cliché, “people who cheat are not destined to cheat again.” Those for whom the cheating was driven by something particular in their past that hasn’t been dealt with, like coming from a family origin where there was infidelity, may act out as serial cheaters until they address the issue at the heart of the problem. “But often enough,” she explains, “that’s just not what’s going on, and infidelity is instead a poor choice method of stepping out of a marriage that is not working. Sometimes people cheat as their way of leaving, and it is not necessarily destined to happen again.”

For Cowell, sharing a child with his current partner could also help motivate him towards monogamy, Saltz posits optimistically. “Having a child often, and hopefully, makes a couple — any couple — feel that splitting up is a more onerous situation, because it impacts that child substantially. It’s easier to move on when it’s just the two of you, and you’re not doing it to the child, who you love.”

Here’s hoping.

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