Simon Cowell still gets "told off" by his mum.
The 54-year-old media mogul always does what 88-year-old Julie Cowell tells him and still feels mortified from an incident when he was a teenager when she ordered him to stop "showing off" in front of his girlfriend.
He admitted: "She still loves to tell me off.
"The worst thing she can say to me if I’m got my friends round is, ‘Simon stop showing off’ and there’s no answer back to that.
"It happened to me once when I was 15 and I brought this girl round for Sunday lunch.
"And I was showing off. Then my mum said, ‘Simon stop showing off’ and I literally couldn’t think of a reply."
However, Simon – who has eight-month-old son Eric with girlfriend Lauren Silverman – admits he uses the phrase a lot himself, particularly when working with Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, Mel B and Louis Walsh on UK TV show ‘The X Factor’.
He told BBC Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw in an interview airing on Friday (10.10.14): "I hated her so much. And it stuck with me. It’s a really good thing to say to the other judges."
Simon Cowell gets told off by mum
