'WE HAVE A DUTY TO BE HELPING PEOPLE'

SIMON COWELL TELLS OK! WHAT SUPPORTING TOGETHER FOR SHORT LIVES MEANS TO HIM NOW HE'S A FATHER

- NICOLA FAHEY AND LAUREN FLETCHER

Arriving at the glamorous Together For Short Lives ball, Simon Cowell and his partner Lauren Silverman were determined to make a difference.

The doting parents to Eric, nine, are longtime patrons of the charity, which provides vital support to families caring for seriously ill children. The loved-up couple helped organise the OK!-sponsored event that saw celeb pals, including Bruno Tonioli, Christine McGuinness, and Peter Andre, raise a magnificent £370,000 over the course of the evening.

“Lauren helps pull it all together,” Simon, 63, says proudly of his fiancée, as we catch up after the event. “There’s a lot of logistics involved and she gets involved in all of that and she comes to hospices with me. She never fails me. Sharing this passion with her is honestly everything. It’s definitely all about compassion.”

The music mogul even jokes that 45-year-old Lauren was responsible for getting him “to the ball on time”, telling us, “I’m terrible. I’m the worst timekeeper in the world.”

Simon has long been a supporter of causes that help children, but it sounds like parenthood has given him even more impetus to help raise funds for Together For Short Lives, where his sister-in-law, Emma Lloyd Cowell, is head of philanthropy and special events.

“When I think about what the kids and the parents are going through in relation to this charity, as a father, I’m just not sure I could cope with it,” he says. “Every parent I’ve spoken to, they’ve said if it wasn’t for the charity they never would have coped. It’s something we are not programmed to deal with. It’s unbearable.