Simon Cowell Traded First Insult at Age 5

"Idol" judge's mom remembers early put downs

Simon Cowell got an early start in life dishing out insults, reportedly telling his own mother at age five that her new hat made her look like a “poodle.”

"I bought a new hat and asked him if I looked nice in it. He replied, ‘You look like a poodle,” the "American Idol" judge's 82-year-old mom, Julie Cowell, told British magazine Yours.

Mama Cowell said she’s never had her feelings hurt from one of her son’s zingers. She always knew that deep down he was just a good boy.

“It would only upset me if he really was a nasty person. Simon isn’t nasty – he’s just honest,” she said, the Daily Telegraph first reported on its website.

That doesn’t mean Cowell ignores what her famously tart-tongued son says on television.

“I’ll tell him if I think he’s said the wrong thing to a contestant,” she said.

Here’s a list of just a few contenders from over the years to help her out with that:
 

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