Simon Cowell reveals son Eric 'saved' him from 'desperately unhappy' times after he lost both parents

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Simon Cowell opened up about going through a dark time in his life.

The TV personality shared in the 'The Diary of A CEO' podcast that after losing both his parents, he struggled to keep up, and lacked enthusiasm to keep going.

Simon Cowell on his 'dark period' after losing his parents 

Cowell, who lost his mother Julie in 2014, said “I think particularly when I lost my mum, I was on a downward spiral at that point. I lost everyone, you know, I’ve lost my parents. It’s finality now. What I said about the material things I’ve got, everything just meant nothing at that point,” per People.

“I was desperately unhappy, I wasn’t particularly enjoying my work and I just thought you know what I’m just going to become a vampire then, and I would work through until 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning,” he added.

“I would wake up at 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon and I actually got addicted to that kind of lifestyle. I just loved the intensity. It was almost like because of the loss I’d had, I’ve got to find something else to fill it. And it was I’m just going to be a ridiculous workaholic, and I was very successful but I wasn’t happy, I really, really wasn’t happy,” he continued.

Simon Cowell says fiancee Lauren Silverman's pregnancy news 'changed everything'

But things changed for the better after his fiancee Lauren Silverman shared that they were going to be parents soon.

“When I got the call from Lauren, which starts, any call that starts with, ‘Are you sitting down?’ You know what‘s coming next. It was like, ‘Are you sitting down?’ ‘Yes,’ ‘Well,’ and she told me. And yes it did absolutely change, it changed everything in my life. It made me happy again,” Cowell told the podcast's host Steven Bartlett.

“For me, it was perfect because like we were talking earlier about our childhoods, it was brilliant. Fantastic. I remember the first time I watched Jungle Book [with him] and I’m looking over and seeing the joy he had watching that movie. It was like, oh my God I remember how I felt when I saw The Jungle Book," he continued.

What really 'saved' Simon Cowell?

When Bartlett asked did son Eric’s arrival "saved him," Cowell didn’t hesitate for a second, “Without question, without question. I really, really had reached the point where nothing mattered. Even to the point that I almost can’t remember everything from that period."

"It hit me so hard, the hardest thing also was being on television as well … I felt like a clown here because I’m dying inside," he said. "And yet I’ve still got to do what I’m being paid to do as best as I could but I’d put on a ton of weight, I was eating junk, if I had got hit by a bus the following day, well, I’d be dead, but I wasn’t worried about anything like that.”

When asked to describe the difficult period, and his "darkest day," Cowell answered, “The whole time was dark. I can absolutely relate to when people reach the lowest levels you possibly can, where essentially being alive doesn’t matter anymore, because you just go, ‘Well, what have I got to live for?’” 

Bartlett enquired, “Did you have those thoughts?”

“Yeah,” said Cowell, before explaining, “Not thinking I want to take my own life, but thinking if something terrible happened it wouldn’t bother me, to myself.”