Simon Cowell

Now living in Italy and using the name Storm di Scozia, he's produced an opera, Ghost Singer: Genesis, based on his experiences on the singing show – with a ...

“It’s not just that you go on the telly, you have a s**t audition or whatever and you get booted off and go back to your job, maybe go start a band, or a record company up in Glasgow liked you or whatever. It’s not like you’re doing anything bad or you’re a horrible person, and that’s when I thought ‘imagine if the future of these shows where no singer worth their salt is ever going to sign up again, I don’t think’. The writer and director explains: “I would sit around writing stuff down and then the music just came out of me so clean, so free, so pure. “Then I started hearing that they really didn’t want people to see this film. “I wanted to do a Scottish opera. I’ve sung at the Oscars, I’ve been on those stages and I thought: ‘do you know what? He explains: “I became probably the most successful ghost singer in LA for a short period of time from 2015 through maybe last year. “The producers are all terrified to lose their jobs and it was a very, very toxic environment. “You don’t learn that until you’re in it, and by that point you can’t get out of it. “That was the carrot they would dangle in front of me, ‘oh Simon loves David Bowie, he really thinks you’re like David Bowie. I had no idea how traumatic and horrific it would be personally, emotionally and then, subsequently, totally destroying any career opportunities I would have had in the UK. “And if you sort of fall between chairs, so to speak, you’re rock & roll but you’re also really European.