Love him or hate him Simon Cowell has cemented himself as one of the most popular television personalities at the moment. It’s quite impressive how he managed to stay relevant throughout the years as the talents he judged on shows like ‘American Idol’ and ‘The X-Factor’ came and went.
This feat is thanks to Cowell’s ability to juggle many job titles all at the same time. Find out how he built his massive fortune on finding talents and how much he’s worth now.
Talent Show Stints
The 60-year-old English tv personality and producer first shot to prominence as part of the first judging panel of ‘American Idol’ alongside singer Paula Abdul and record producer Randy Jackson.
He showed his no-nonsense attitude from the get-go and people came to know his tough love style of critiquing contestants. Thanks to the success of the reality singing competition, Cowell reportedly earned an average of $30 million a year for his ‘American Idol’ stint.
Perhaps seeing how lucrative reality talent contests can be, the judge went on to produce ‘The X-Factor’ through his own company, SYCO, while he was working on ‘American Idol’. The United Kingdom-based show proved to be a hit.
Following this success, he created two more shows, Britain’s Got Talent and its American version. As you would expect, such endeavors earned him a constant stream of multimillion-dollar paychecks.
Discovering Pop Stars
Being a judge for multiple shows for several years, Cowell has also developed a good eye for marketable talents. It’s thanks to his own shows that musical acts like One Direction and Fifth Harmony got their big break to succeed as mainstream artists.
While these two groups have since broken up, Cowell got to see his investment pay off. For example, One Direction’s debut album ‘Up All Night’, which was produced by Syco Records, sold millions of copies and became the third best selling album in the world in the year of its release.
The producer’s company reportedly still represents former Fifth Harmony member Camila Cabello, who is carving out a name as a solo artist now.
Fruits of Hard Work
After all this hard work and empire-building, Cowell now sits on a $600 million fortune.
And if that alone isn’t impressive enough, the producer’s wealth makes him richer than the Queen herself, who reportedly has a personal net worth of about $430 million (£350 million).