Simon Cowell’s older brother reveals how mogul supported him through secret cancer battle
SIMON Cowell’s older brother has told how the music mogul supported him as he beat cancer.
Tony Cowell, 73, revealed he fought a secret battle with bladder cancer last year but is now in remission after an NHS op and chemo.
And he said TV star Simon, 63, offered to sort out his care and, when told there was no need, insisted on speaking to his consultant about his treatment.
Tony, whose wife Emma was writing her just-released second novel which includes a character with cancer, realised he needed to see a doctor after a trip to Greece with her.
He said: “The day after we got back, there was blood in my urine.
“I went straight to my GP, who said it was a sign of bladder cancer. I didn’t know what to say to Emma or my son Luke.
“We had literally been discussing the character in her book on the flight home from Greece — and suddenly fiction looked like it was becoming fact.”
Tony, was diagnosed with Stage 2 bladder cancer and called Simon at his home in LA , where he lives with fiancée Lauren Silverman, 45, and son Eric, nine.
Author and journalist Tony, from Falmouth, Cornwall, said: “I could hear he was extremely upset.
“I had to calm him down. He then switched and became Mr Helpful.”
Emma, 46, said of her book The House in the Olive Grove: “I was halfway through the novel and I was talking to Tony about it and how the people were affected.
“It is so deeply ironic then that a week later we were those characters.”
- The House in the Olive Grove by Emma Cowell is out now — published by Avon Harper Collins