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Simon Cowell likes to think of himself as a very generous man. He also likes to think of himself as a very single man — which is why, as he admitted last week, he occasionally gives girlfriends a 'pay-off' when they split.
The reasoning offered by Cowell, whose £200 million fortune makes him one of the world's most eligible bachelors, is that this is the decent thing to do.
'You can't have somebody in your life who's become accustomed to a certain thing, and just because you don't want to be in the relationship any more say to them, now everything is cut off. That doesn't make sense,' he told an interviewer.
He added that he has paid unofficial alimony 'probably' more than once.
'It's not alimony. I believe it is doing the right thing. And that came back to me wanting them to be happy. You just can't do it too many times,' he said.
And so, as he approaches his 52nd birthday, Cowell finds himself contemplating a pay-off to his current girlfriend Mezhgan Hussainy.
She was his make-up artist until they began an official romance 18 months ago, but that is effectively over.
Dailymail