Simon Cowell used to be an estate agent.
The 56-year-old music mogul may have a successful record label and television production company under his belt but that doesn’t mean his empire fell on his lap as he spent eight "miserable" months trying to sell houses in London beforehand.
Speaking in the second part of his radio interview with talent manager Professor Jonathan Shalit, he said: "After I left the music industry I was an estate agent for eight months. And I can honestly say it was the most miserable eight months of my life.
"I worked for this really snotty company in Mayfair who hated me and I hated them, and I was so upset that my mum actually said to me ‘I’ve never seen you so depressed.’
"And luckily I was offered a job back at the music publishing company. I’m glad I tried it because it was horrible."
Simon later got a job working at EMI with music publisher Ellis Rich and, although they were both determined to climb their way up the ladder, they certainly had some laughs along the way.
Ellis explained: "We decided it would be funny to take out a newspaper ad of a picture of Simon and I apparently naked.
"We booked and paid for it but forgot that the closing day was the Friday; on Thursday we got a call from the paper saying ‘if we don’t get that picture tonight you’re just going to have a big black box there. So Simon says ‘there’s a photo booth in Bond Street station, let’s go there.’ Now it is half past four, Thursday night, Bond Street station, very very busy.
"So we get to the booth, I go in, shut the curtain, strip off down to the waist, and at that moment Simon flings open the curtain and says ‘oh my god there’s a naked man in the photo booth!’ I’m amazed I didn’t get arrested. He was difficult to manage."
Simon Cowell worked as estate agent for eight months
