Cowell says sorry over revelations

Simon Cowell has apologised to anyone who had been embarrassed by a book written about him, saying the revelations made him hide under a pillow.

Speaking at the launch party for Tom Bower's unauthorised biography Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell, which reveals the reality TV guru had an affair with former X-Factor judge Dannii Minogue and was romantically interested in fellow judge Cheryl Cole, Cowell said he was sorry to anyone upset by it.

"I want to publicly apologise to anybody I embarrassed because I have tried to keep my private life quiet a bit and I do have to apologise to certain people and certain members of my family. That's the score."

Addressing the star-studded party at the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens, Cowell said extracts from the book made him want to hide. "I will be honest with you, I spent last week under a pillow in my bedroom. Newspapers were literally banned for a week. I always know how bad things are when my head of TV sends me these really sweet messages saying 'are you OK' which means it's really bad."

The Britain's Got Talent judge told the crowd: "Being invited here tonight when Tom called me was rather like a cat inviting a mouse to a dinner party."

However, he said that he had come to like Bower, with whom he had spent many hours. "Max Clifford said to me 10 years ago... that I was taking myself too seriously. If someone had said to me 10 years ago 'there's going to be a book written about you about you making loads of money and s****ing loads of girls, I would have gone 'great, that's why I'm in the music business'."