Simon Cowell has revealed that he pays some of his ex-girlfriends to allow them to live in the style they grew accustomed to while they were with the music mogul.

He admitted to The Guardian that he continues to give money to more than one ex: “Probably yeah. You can't have somebody in your life who's become accustomed to a certain thing, and just because you don't want to be in the relationship anymore say to them, now everything is cut off,” SiCo explained. “That doesn’t make sense.”

But he denied that the payments were a form of alimony. "It's not alimony. It's, I believe, doing the right thing. That comes back to me wanting them to be happy; you just can't do it too many times."

Simon’s exes include Sinitta and Terri Seymour, both of whom he has stayed close to and both of whom occasionally work with him.

Recent rumours circulated that The X Factor boss had [uuid=007bb8d2-1f9c-4d5b-8d0e-b59e4af50c29]broken off his engagement[/uuid] with make-up artist Mezhgan Hussainy and moved her into a house in LA dubbed the ‘girlfriend graveyard’, after Terri lived their following their break-up in 2008. Afterwards Terri moved into her own £3m home, funded by her generous ex.

Earlier this week, Simon’s spokesman Max Clifford insisted the star was still with Mezhgan. “I don’t know about planning a wedding – I think you might have to wait 20 years for Simon to plan a wedding – but they are as close as they’ve ever been,” he said.