SIMON COWELL TO GIVE UP 40 STICKS A DAY SMOKING HABIT FOR THE SAKE OF LITTLE SON

Simon Cowell and Eric

Simon Cowell says smoking is his worst vice, but the once 40-a-day man reveals he has cut back drastically – for the sake of his son Eric.

The X Factor supremo, who favours Kool menthol cigarettes, says he’s now down to about 10 a day.

“I have cut down,” he said. “If Eric grows up and says stop it, I don’t know what I would do.

“I don’t smoke around him and I wouldn’t do that. I have thought about what he might say in a few years. It is my worst vice.”

Simon , 56, will be joined by One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson for the Judges’ Houses stage of The X Factor this weekend.

He added: “I was saying to Louis, this is the one thing I would find very difficult to give up because I do love a cigarette. A cigarette and a beer.”

Friends say his admission that he may be forced to quit because of his 20-month-old son shows just how much his life has changed.

One said: “He used to smoke much, much more so Eric is already having a positive effect on his health. Eric is the only person in the world that could make him quit completely.”

Simon tells how his son has mellowed him, saying: “Eric has made a massive difference because I wasn’t expecting that, and I didn’t know what that would bring to my life. He is so much fun.”