I’m mentioned on page nine of today’s Independent On Sunday in a news story about Simon Cowell. It relates to a radio interview Cowell gave in America in 2004 which I dug up while researching my biography of him. In it he spoke out firmly against allowing children to enter television talent shows, saying he feared it could do them “serious damage” and even leave them as messed up as Michael Jackson.

Since then he has routinely allowed children to enter Britain’s Got Talent and has also auditioned 14-year-olds on The X Factor. Indeed, he even auditions a four-year-old Michael Jackson impersonator on the new series of Britain’s Got Talent. Cynics would say it is no coincidence that his change of heart came about when he moved from the Idol franchise (in which he was a hired judge) to the Talent and X Factor franchises in which he has a higher financial stake. I personally think he just changed his mind and that there’s nothing wrong with that. Given how opinionated and outspoken Cowell is he has been remarkably consistent in the main.

All the same, his quotes from 2004 make for interesting reading. The US Fox Network had just made a spin-off of American Idol called American Juniors, which featured child contestants. The programme-makers offered Cowell a lucrative package to sign as an executive producer but he turned it down because of his concerns about putting kids under the spotlight, as he explained to American radio interviewer Terry Gross.

Asked about the morals of putting children on a television talent show, Cowell said: “I have a problem with that, I really do. I even have a problem with people entering at 16. They’re just not ready for it. I go into [American Idol] as a grown-up and I like to treat people like grown-ups. I find it very difficult sometimes saying to a 16 year old what I really think because they’re just not mature enough to deal with it. I don’t think it benefits anybody: me, them, the audience at home.

“They’re just too young. They’ve got to be of an age to deal with this, I think. Look at Michael Jackson – take somebody in at an early age and see what happens. You lose your growing-up period. This is what happens when you go into the music industry at such an early age.

“You say that to an 11 year old and they’re never going to listen to you because they want to be rich and famous. But when you deprive someone of that age of their normal growing up you really can do them serious damage in my opinion.”

Asked what he thought of the entertainment quality of American Juniors, he replied: “Dreadful, absolutely dreadful. What’s the point? No one at the age of 11 can really sing, there’s nothing you can say to them because you can’t criticise a 10 year old. The whole thing was just ghastly. I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

My bestselling biography of Simon Cowell is now out in paperback. I am currently putting the finishing touches to this book.