Ten weeks ago, Simon Cowell suffered a horrifying fall. He was testing an electric bike and, after underestimating its power, was thrown off — breaking his back in three places.

He had a six-and-a-half-hour operation to fuse the breaks in his spine, having come just millimetres away from being paralysed.

And now, with Britain’s Got Talent concluding without him, and his 61st birthday quietly celebrated among family, he remains cloistered in his Malibu mansion.

The process of recovery has been more lengthy and complex than Cowell and his team initially hoped.