We will see a different side to X Factor boss Simon Cowell when he appears on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories next Saturday night. The usually quick witted and caustic tongued judge will openly weep as he chats to the Piers about his late father.

Simon revealed that he was in America celebrating Westlife’s first number one single ‘Swear It Again’, which his dad Eric had coincidentally chosen, when he found out he had died. He admitted:

“It was a horrible, horrible, horrible time. You believe everyone is going to live forever and they don’t and all the stuff you think you care about, the hit records and stuff like that, it’s just meaningless.”

Weeping while he spoke Cowell went on: “I can’t admit things, that’s why I can’t go to funerals and stuff like that. I find it very, very difficult to deal with that kind of reality. I shut myself off totally because it affects me so badly.

“And then, because I had to deal with that, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do – because I’d never lost anyone in my life. I just couldn’t accept it.”

His mum Julie added: “He just went to pieces.

“He was very shocked, it was unexpected. I never realised how emotional he was until this.”

Speaking about his career and celebrity status now Simon said: “Dad would have got a kick out of this, you know, and I often think about that.

“I would have liked to have seen his reaction because I think he would have found it good fun.”