Simon Cowell has had some strange fan encounters over the years – but none quite like the couple who offered him a fortune to critique their bedroom performance. Speaking on the How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast, the famously blunt TV judge, 65, said he was once approached by a man in a restaurant who asked for a photo, before introducing his wife and making a very X-rated request.

“People used to ask me to be rude to them,” Cowell recalled on the May 7 episode, noting that he’d turn all of them down. “Then, one time, I was in a restaurant and this guy comes up to me and he said, ‘I love your show. Would you take a picture?’ [I say], ‘Sure.’” But things quickly took a bizarre turn. According to Cowell, the man then asked if he’d be willing to “judge [them] having sex.” “I’m, like, ‘Are you winding me up?’ They went, ‘No, we’ll pay you,’” he claimed. “[I said], ‘Well, how much?’ 

"It was actually a lot of money. I thought, ‘Do I? No, I just can’t do it.’” He later revealed the offer was for £120,000 ($150,000), adding: “It was just so bizarre.”

Despite his public persona, the Britain's Got Talent star admitted he’s actually painfully shy and finds social situations “torture,” recalling how difficult he found small talk at Joan Collins’ birthday party.

“That’s something I really have enjoyed, though, weirdly. I am very shy, like, I can’t go to a pre-party. It’s my worst thing in the world, making small talk with someone I don’t know. If we have a common subject, I’m pretty good, but years ago, if I had to go to a party … and had to talk to people, it [was] torture.”

He continued: “So, instantly, they know you and you’re talking about something I like, which is the shows or the artists. Now, Lauren [Silverman, my fiancée] is brilliant in these positions. I’m hopeless. 

"Joan Collins had a birthday party and I said to Lauren, ‘I’ll go, but we have to time it ‘cause there will be a horrible stand-up, pre-drinks [that] I can’t do.”

Cowell said he lasted 45 minutes mingling before he “was dying inside,” and left just 30 minutes into dinner. “[It was] draining,” he admitted.

He also opened up about what he considers a personal failure – his discomfort in social situations – and the difficult side of mentoring talent.

“When you find someone who’s got talent, you can’t hold onto them forever. That’s a fact, unfortunately. You have to let them go,” he said, referencing One Direction’s rise on The X Factor.

“It’s a hard thing even with my son [Eric], there’s going to be a point in his life where, whatever he does, there’s going to be pressure.”