Simon Cowell admits paying off his exes

Cowell has admitted to "paying off" some of his former girlfriends.

The Syco boss has remained close with Sinitta, Jackie St Clair and Terri Seymour since splitting with them, and recent reports indicated that fiancée Mezhgan Hussainy had moved into a mansion dubbed his 'girlfriend graveyard'.

Asked whether he pays his exes unofficial alimony, the X Factor judge told The Guardian: "Not all of them, that's quite rare.'

However, when asked if he pays money to more than one girlfriend, Cowell replied: "Probably yeah. You can't have somebody in your life who's become accustomed to a certain thing, and just because you don't want to be in the ­relationship any more say to them, no ­everything is cut off.

"It's not alimony. It's, I believe, doing the right thing. That comes back to me wanting them to be happy, you just can't do it too many times."

He added that he suffers from bad moods that "come out of nowhere" but refuses to take antidepressants as they "numb ­everything and you end up in some sort of living coma".

Cowell also suggested that there are worse things to get upset about than the News of the World phone hacking scandal.