When you’re as rich as Simon Cowell, you can pretty much do what you want, when you want - and that goes for Christmas too.
This year you won’t find the ‘X Factor’ boss getting up at the crack of dawn to open pressies and baste his turkey.
Instead, the 58-year-old takes a rather more unconventional approach to the festive season, which he spends in Barbados with his son Eric and girlfriend Lauren Silverman.
His brother Tony revealed: “Long before Eric came along, Simon’s Barbados Christmas Day would read: Get up at 2pm, breakfast of spinach smoothie, toast and honey, and tea. 3pm, jet-ski for hour. 4pm, sunbathe then nap. 9.30pm, Christmas dinner (roast chicken, not turkey). Simon is a creature of habit.
“If you spend Christmas with him, be prepared to fit into his schedule.
“Even Mum used to shout at him to get out of bed on Christmas Day. But I don’t blame him: Simon’s schedule is close to crazy.”
However, now that little Eric has come along, Simon has broken his tradition and gets up earlier – but not before 11am.
Tony also revealed that the music mogul takes a private jet to Barbados so his pet Yorkshire terriers, Squiddly and Diddly can join him and not go into kennels.
It’s not been the easiest year for Simon. In October he was rushed to hospital when he fell down the stairs at his London mansion.
There was also bad news on the ‘X Factor’ front, with this year’s series scoring the lowest viewing figures in the show’s history.
The final, which saw boyband Rak-Su win the singing competition, pulled in an average of just 4.4 million views, compared to Strictly’s 9.9 million on BBC One.
The average on-the-night viewing figure were 1.1m down on the Saturday night of the 2016 final, which until this year was the least-watched X Factor final in series history.