Andy DehnartSimon Cowell will be interviewed on 60 Minutes Sunday at 7 p.m. ET by former Mole host Anderson Cooper. In a clip of that interview released by CBS, Simon says he’s as important to his record company as Bruce Springsteen and that he sells more records.
Simon says he has “signed the biggest artist on the planet and it’s called ‘Idol’ because every single ‘Idol’ winner is now signed through Sony BMG. And this applies to … all the countries … we sell ‘Idol’ to, which is over 30 countries.”
Here’s the Bruce Springsteen-related exchange from the clip:
Anderson: “Are you as important to Sony BMG as Bruce Springsteen?”
Simon: “In terms of selling records, yes.”
Anderson: “Who sells more records?”
Simon: “I sell more records than Bruce Springsteen, sure. I mean, in the last five years, I’ve probably sold over 100 million records. So if he got 100, I should have got 500. But I mean, $100 million deal, that’s a great deal.”
Anderson: “For him or for you?”
Simon (laughing): “For him, it’s a good deal.”
Perhaps more appallingly, Simon also says on 60 Minutes that he was once asked “to come to [a couple’s] house and comment on him and his wife in bed.” He says, according to the New York Post, that people “were both in their fifties and he was going to pay me $100,000 for it,” but he said no. “I stupidly turned it down. I should’ve taken the money, because it would be a much more interesting story now.”