- Simon Cowell is beloved as one of the judges on ‘America’s Got Talent’ and has served as a judge on other popular shows like ‘The X Factor’ and ‘American Idol.’
- Simon has faced his share of injuries in the past, including losing his voice early on in a season of ‘AGT’ and a few biking accidents.
- Still, Simon is expected to return to the newest season of ‘AGT.’
Besides being a great judge of talent, Simon Cowell is also an avid biker. Unfortunately, the America’s Got Talent judge, 63, has suffered a series of accidents while riding his bike. Simon has undergone some serious injuries while riding his bike, but he always is up to give it another go, and has revealed that the accidents have influenced him to change aspects of his life so he can keep doing his passion.
The biking accidents haven’t been the only injuries that Simon has faced. He’s also lost his voice on one occasion, and he was even the subject of a death hoax. Thankfully, Simon is still alive and well, and he’ll surely be entertaining fans for years to come. Find out more about the American Idol alum’s health here.
Simon Cowell’s Bike Accidents
With riding a bike, there are injury risks, naturally, and Simon fell victim to some of the hardest ones that an individual can face. His first injury came in August 2020, when he fell off of an electric bike in Malibu and broke his back in August 2020. He was hospitalized and had surgery performed overnight following the accident. Despite what was undoubtedly a scary injury, he kept a good sense of humor when tweeting about it himself. “Some good advice… If you buy an electric trail bike, read the manual before you ride it for the first time. I have broken part of my back. Thank you to everyone for your kind messages,” he wrote. “And a massive thank you to all the nurses and doctors. Some of the nicest people I have ever met. Stay safe everyone Simon.”
Over a year after breaking his back, Simon suffered another fall from an e-bike in February 2022. An eyewitness revealed that he had not been wearing a helmet at the time to The Sun, and they said that he had blood rushing down his face in the aftermath. A source revealed that luckily, he was able to bounce back relatively easily. “After being ambulanced to hospital and given an X-ray, Simon was eventually released that evening — his arm in a yellow cast all the way up to the shoulder — and told to rest,” they told the outlet.
While no one ever wants to go through an injury, the AGT judge later admitted that he felt like the injury may have been a blessing in disguise in a May 2023 interview with Today. “I was so unfit before the accident. I didn’t know how unfit I was until I had to do all this stuff afterwards,” he said. “And I’m like, ‘My God.’ Things like that, I believe happened for a reason.”
While he said that the bike accident was “painful,” he did show that he wasn’t afraid of another fall (though he did vow to start wearing a helmet while speaking to Daily Mail). “I’m still gonna stay on my bike,” he said. “I’m obsessed with these things.”
Simon Cowell’s Voice: What Happened
Aside from biking, Simon also had another health issue that affected his performance in season 18 of AGT. Fans noticed that Simon wasn’t speaking at the start of the season, and he revealed that he lost his voice. The music mogul revealed the lengths they went to to try to figure out what to do about his voice in a 2023 interview with USA Today. “It was torture. There was so much I wanted to say, and I literally could not talk,” he said. “We tried writing things. At one point, I used this kind of iPad device where I had things I’d said before. I tried to use Sofía [Vergara] to translate for me, and she deliberately said the wrong things, so it was just chaos.”
The X Factor judge also said he went to a doctor who took a camera to his vocal cords and he said he was able to see how “burned” they looked. “I think what happened was the acid from my stomach literally burned my vocal cords,” he said.
Simon Cowell Plastic Surgery Rumors & How He’s Doing Now
While Simon appears to be in good health, there have been a few hoaxes about the music personality’s death that have gone viral in recent years, but they’ve been found to be false, per Snopes. After one of the more recent hoaxes, Simon did post a video on Instagram, congratulating X-Factor alums One Direction on hitting 1 billion streams on their hit “What Makes You Beautiful” on Aug. 10, 2023. In the comments of the post, some fans speculated that he’d undergone plastic surgery on his face, per Page Six.
Rumors aside, Simon seems to be doing very well. He’s currently in the midst of filming season 18 of America’s Got Talent, which will air its season finale on Aug. 30, 2023. In early August, he also launched SYCO Publishing, which he called a “boutique publisher dedicated to supporting and developing global songwriting talent.” He shared his excitement in a statement on Instagram. “There is nothing more important than a great song. I started my career in music publishing. Mike [McCormack] and Universal have given me the chance to build a music publishing company. They are a brilliant company and share my wish to work with amazing songwriters,” he said.