Cowell’s mother leaves him share of £700,000... to add to his £350m
THE mother Simon Cowell adored left him a share of her £700,000 fortune in her will, which is today made public for the first time.
The X Factor tycoon, who is reportedly worth £355million, will share the bulk of the former dancer’s estate with his brother Nicholas, three half-brothers John, Tony and Michael, and his half-sister June.
Julie Cowell – also known by her stage name Julie Brett – left £792,126, producing a net figure of £693,959 after her affairs were settled.
She left £10,000 to each of ten named grandchildren and stepgrandchildren. Simon’s 21-monthold son Eric is not mentioned as the will was drawn up before he was born. The boy will still inherit £10,000, however, because Mrs Cowell stipulated that money should also be left to ‘any other grandchild living at the date of my death’.
Music mogul Cowell was close to his mother – who battled cancer in the 1990s – and would often turn to her for advice. She was a familiar face on the set of The X Factor and their bond grew even stronger following the death of Cowell’s father, Eric, at the age of 81 in 1999.
When Mrs Cowell, 89, died in July after suffering a stroke, her son insisted on cancelling the first round of auditions for the current series of his ITV talent show.
In a moving interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine last week, he spoke about the devastating impact of losing her.
Cowell, 56, recalled how he refused to face up to the inevitable when doctors said his mother had only months to live.
He said: ‘I wouldn’t listen. I kept saying right to the end that there was hope. And I wasn’t prepared for it. You know, it all happened in my 50s. I have a son and then I lost my mother. It changes you. I’m still going through it.’
Cowell described his mother as the one woman who could ‘reduce me to being a five-year-old all over again’, adding: ‘She’d call me up and go nuts at me for swearing on television.’
Friends said it was one of the great joys of Mrs Cowell’s life to see her son start a family with his Ameri- can partner, 38-year-old socialite Lauren Silverman.
In her will, Cowell’s mother, who lived in Ovingdean, Brighton, asked to be buried at St Margaret’s Church in nearby Rottingdean with her husband Eric.
She also left £1,000 each to two friends, Tricia Nobes and Maria Dore, both of Brighton.