Simon Cowell reveals his secret previous job

Slippery, slimy, economical with the truth… No, no, not Simon Cowell! These are just a few of the unfair jibes often thrown at estate agents.

And guess what? In an almighty coincidence, the X Factor judge has just revealed that he used to be one. Who’d have thought?

Simon made the shock admission in a new tell-all radio interview, in which he admitted to presenter Jonathan Shalit: “After I left the music industry I was an estate agent for eight months. And I can honestly say it was the most miserable eight months of my life.

“I worked for this really snotty company in Mayfair who hated me and I hated them, and I was so upset that my mum actually said to me ‘I’ve never seen you so depressed.’

“And luckily I was offered a job back at the music publishing company. I’m glad I tried it because it was horrible.”

Still, estate agency’s loss is TV’s gain, right?

The 55-year-old star also used the chat, which airs on Radio 2 tonight at 10pm, to recount the time when he was almost arrested for being naked in the street.

It was all the fault of Simon’s pal, EMI publisher Ellis Rich. “We decided it would be funny to take out a newspaper ad of a picture of Simon and I apparently naked,” he explained.

“We booked and paid for it but forgot that the closing day was the Friday; on Thursday we got a call from the paper saying ‘if we don’t get that picture tonight you’re just going to have a big black box there.

“So Simon says ‘there’s a photo booth in Bond Street station, let’s go there.’ Now it is half past four, Thursday night, Bond Street station, very very busy.

”So we get to the booth, I go in, shut the curtain, strip off down to the waist, and at that moment Simon flings open the curtain and says ‘oh my god there’s a naked man in the photo booth!’”

“I’m amazed I didn’t get arrested. Let’s just say he was difficult to manage.”