- This eerily familiar face appears in the photo from the last day of the semester at Dover College.
With a disdainful scowl and a withering look, he is the eerily familiar face of a boy destined to be known on television as “Mr Nasty”.
Here is Simon Cowell, a 16-year-old schoolboy, taken just weeks before leaving the private boarding school he despised.
The Mail on Sunday has unearthed a never-before-seen school photograph of the X Factor creator from his time at Dover College in Kent.
Taken in 1975, on the last day of the semester, young Cowell can be seen with long, side-swept hair that almost covers his trademark scowl as he poses for a photo in the back row with his boarding classmates at the private school. .
Cowell, now 64, left Dover College after taking two O levels, the equivalent of GCSEs, and last year said he “hated” the school, adding: “I got kicked out of a lot of schools.” They abandoned me one year because I was very bad and I was in the same class as my younger brother and that was chaos.’
The Mail on Sunday has unearthed this photo of Simon Cowell from his time at Dover College in Kent.
A former schoolmate, who was two years older than Cowell, told the State Department: “I don’t think he liked school very much, but it was a pretty strict school and it was the 70s, so everyone was starting to rebel against having to be part of such a strict boarding school.’
Lorenzo Smerillo, former assistant head of house, previously said: “Simon was a very unhappy, nicotine-addicted, skinny, scruffy, unkempt and pimply teenager, like most boys at any school.”
‘I found it funny in a peculiar way. He often had a joke on the tip of his tongue. Some of the boys looked up to him after he left school with O level or two because he got a job as a mail delivery boy at a London record company.
Cowell left Dover College with two O levels and mentioned last year that he “hated” the school
Cowell began working at his father’s record label, EMI, before being promoted to talent scout.
He went on to create some of television’s most successful talent shows, including The X Factor, Pop Idol, America and Britain’s Got Talent. For a time he was known as a difficult man to please and often criticized aspiring stars with withering put-downs.
But he has now mellowed in recent years after settling down with socialite Laura Silverman, 46, and enjoys spending time with his ten-year-old son Eric.
