Simon Cowell pulled out of Britain’s Got Talent auditions ‘after suffering head injury’

Simon Cowell has showed off a massive bump on his head two days after being forced to pull out of Britain’s Got Talent auditions.

Earlier in the week, the first auditions for the upcoming 19^th season of the long-running ITV series were due to start in Birmingham.

However, on Thursday, head judge and music executive Simon, 65, fell ill, which saw the auditions for that day postponed. He was then replaced by Stacey Solomon the following day when the production got back up and running.

At the time a BGT spokesperson told Metro: ‘Due to unforeseen circumstances, today’s filming of Britain’s Got Talent has been postponed.’

A few days on Simon has now returned to set – but with a nasty-looking  injury.

Posting a video of himself in the Hippodrome theatre with a crowd behind him, Simon reassured fans he was ok.

‘It’s Simon, I’m alive and I’m in Birmingham, I just want to say thank you for all your get-well messages,’ he said, before pulling the camera close to his face and showing his grazed forehead,’ he shared on Instagram.

As people cheered behind him, he cheekily quipped that ‘only two people’ had actually checked in on him.

A source has said that Simon sustained a bump to the head which left him in so much pain he couldn’t attend the first round of auditions on Thursday, which saw them cancelled.

‘Simon had a terrible headache and migraine – caused by an accidental bump on the head,’ they told The Sun.

‘He’s fighting fit now though – and was revelling being in Birmingham and back in his judge seat.’

An insider also told the same publication of Stacey filling Simon’s seat: ‘If she hadn’t stepped in then organisers were facing doing the show with three judges OR potentially cancelling the Birmingham auditions and they really did not want to do that.

‘So many people were disappointed when yesterday’s auditions were cancelled they didn’t want that to happen again, so Stacey was a great sport and stepped in.

‘BGT are so grateful to her for agreeing at such short notice and it adds an extra bit of excitement to proceedings too.’

Stacey, 35, rose to fame when she competed on The X Factor, another one of Cowell’s competition shows, in 2009.

The judging panel for the next season of BGT has already been given a shake-up, with YouTuber KSI joining after Bruno Tonioli’s exit.

After two years on the show, last month Bruno confirmed he would be stepping back due to scheduling conflicts with Dancing with the Stars in the US.

Simon and KSI will also be joined by regular show judges Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon.

Last year Simon discussed suffering from debilitating migraines after being forced to miss a couple of auditions during filming.

He also wears a pair of red-tinted glasses to protect his eyes while shooting in the studio under bright lights for long periods of time.

In 2020 had an incredibly close call after crashing his electric bike near his Malibu home in a near-fatal collision, then facing extensive surgery including having a metal rod put in his back to stabilise it.

A few years earlier – in 2017 – he collapsed in his London home after fainting due to low blood pressure, which lead to a head injury.

Speaking about the scare, he previously shared: ‘Sometimes we get a reminder that we’re not invincible and this was certainly mine. It was a huge shock.

‘They think I fainted because I had low blood pressure and so I have got to really take good care of myself to sort that out.

‘After all I am a dad and have more responsibility than ever.’

Metro has contacted representatives for Simon Cowell for comment.

Britain’s Got Talent returns to ITV later this year.

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