{"id":113350,"date":"2025-05-19T03:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T03:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/113350\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T03:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T03:37:10","slug":"x-factor-legend-dies-aged-64-after-working-closely-with-simon-cowell-for-eight-years-on-hit-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/113350\/","title":{"rendered":"X Factor legend dies aged 64 after working closely with Simon Cowell for eight years on hit show"},"content":{"rendered":"

AN X Factor legend has passed away aged 64 after working closely with Simon Cowell on the show for eight years. <\/p>\n

Bodyguard Tony Adkins – known as Big Tony – died on Easter Sunday while on a rugby tour, a family member confirmed on social media. <\/p>\n

\"Simon<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Simon Cowell’s former bodyguard Big Tony has passed awayCredit: X\"MANCHESTER,<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Tony – pictured with George Sampson – worked on The X Factor for eight yearsCredit: WireImage<\/p>\n

Sharing a photo of Tony, his cousin wrote: “It is with great sadness my family would like to announce that my Cousin Big Tony, Simon Cowell<\/a>‘s ex bodyguard, passed away on Easter Sunday while on a Rugby Tour.<\/p>\n

“He was a loveable Rogue and will be missed very much, RIP Big T.” <\/p>\n

Hammersmith and Fulham RFC also paid tribute<\/a> to Tony with a statement on its website. <\/p>\n

It read: “It is with immense sadness that the club pays tribute to a true gent and great Hammer, Tony Adkins, who passed away whilst on tour with the Club in Poland on Easter Sunday.”<\/p>\n

Viewers will remember dealing with upset contestants on The X Factor<\/a>, often being forced to remove them from the audition room when things didn’t go their way.<\/p>\n

After his time working for Simon and the show came to an end, he revealed what his former famous boss is really like. <\/p>\n

He told the Mirror<\/a>: “Simon was so laid-back and a very nice guy.<\/p>\n

“He was generous, too. Whenever the show finished – and at Christmas – you’d get an envelope as a thank you. The last one I got had \u00a3700 stuffed in it.”<\/p>\n

Tony continued: “He’s a very private person. He doesn’t give much away. You never see him drunk or out of control.<\/p>\n

“Simon is vain – he does his hair all the time.<\/p>\n

Multi-millionaire Simon Cowell brands rich people \u2018obnoxious, snobby and unhappy\u2019 and insists he\u2019s NOT worth \u00a3500m<\/p>\n

“If there are five breaks in filming then Simon will do his hair five times.”<\/p>\n

He added: “And I think he has about 20 identical T-shirts. I remember once he had a hole in one, so he just reached into a bag and pulled out another from a big pile.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AN X Factor legend has passed away aged 64 after working closely with Simon Cowell on the show…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77,205,2427,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-113350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-section-tvnews-tv","10":"tag-the-x-factor","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114532413975146214","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}