Simon Cowell is smug, successful, and your mum probably secretly fancies him, so how on earth is he so popular? The famously limited uniform of high-waisted black jeans, mahogany tan and perma-white LA teeth could not be further removed from the music moguls early roots. Simon first started with menial work in the post room at EMI, after Daddy Cowell gave him a job. He later became an assistant to an A&R man, but Simon soon left to set up his own label, Fanfare, with business partner Iain Burton. Fanfare's parent company ran into financial difficulty in 1989, causing Simon to move back in with his parents and sell his beloved Porsche. However, Simon wasn't about to give up in a hurry and joined BMG as an A&R, looking for new artists to sign to the label. We have him to thank for Westlife, Five, Zig And Zag and Robson & Jerome. In 2001 Cowell appeared as a judge on Pop Idol, where we were first introduced to Mr Nasty as he soon became known. Crushing the dreams of auditioning wannabes soon became his favourite past time, and he landed himself a spot on the US version American Idol. Simon soon set up Syco TV and the first series of The X Factor appeared on UK screens in 2004 again with Mr Nasty as a judge. Britain's Got Talent soon followed and many careers have been made and destroyed by Cowell's fair hand (including Cheryl Cole's). As he left the UK X Factor in 2011, the US version launched to scathing reviews and mediocre ratings. Was Simon loosing his midas touch? One area that is notoriously fickle is Simon's love life. Always seemingly shy of commitment, he was linked to Terri Seymour from 2002 to 2008, but became engaged to make-up artist Mezhgan Hussainy in 2010 but who knows what's happening between the pair now.