By Lucretia Munro
If former X Factor star Lucy Spraggan was to cast her mind back to 2012, she would undoubtedly have discounted Simon Cowell as an associate, never mind a friend.
But it seems the pair have since created a solid friendship, so much so, the reality TV star asked Simon, 64, to walk her down the aisle. Their relationship blossomed into full bloom since she was horrifically attacked at that time while on the singing competition.
At the time, Lucy, 32, was only 21 years old and was sexually attacked by a hotel porter named Soby John, who used his hotel key card to enter her room after she had passed out drunk after celebrating Rylan Clark's birthday. But it wasn't until the death of Caroline Flack in 2020, Lucy felt able to speak out about her ordeal. Her attacker was sentenced to 10 years and was deported back to India, after serving three years of his sentence.
In her memoir, Process: Finding My Way Through, Lucy slammed the four companies behind The X Factor – ITV, Syco, Sony and producers Fremantle – for their lack of support after she left the show. A year after the attack, she was never contacted by the show in April 2013 after Soby pleaded guilty to rape. She claimed in her memoir that she was never offered counselling, which she contributes to her spiralling into a world of drink and drugs, leading to a suicide attempt in 2014.
Now sober, she said Simon's apology has helped her heal a part of her she did not know needed healing. She said: "When we first made contact, I didn’t think for one second that all this would blossom into friendship. We ended up talking about life, then he’d call to say: ‘I just wanted to check in on you.’”
She added: "When I’m in America, I go to their house in LA. Then the other night, we did a murder mystery night at their place in the Cotswolds, which was hilarious. I authentically love the guy, I love Lauren, I love their son Eric, I love Lauren’s other son Adam. We’re all great friends. I care about them, they care about me, and Simon really cares about my life, my wellness and my music. Simon and Lauren feel like surrogate parents. They’re always looking out for me."
In an interview with The Sun, Lucy recalled how she proposed to her girlfriend Emelia Smith, last December. It was during her flight to Barbados to see Simon and his partner Lauren Silverman. She recalled: "On the plane, I don’t even know who said what, but I was like: ‘Let’s just get married!’ Both of us were like: ‘Yeah!’ It just made loads of sense."
She continued: "Emilia and I were those friends who said: ‘If we’re not married by the time we’re 40, we’ll get married to each other,’ and somehow, this deep friendship opened up into attraction. We’d been staying at Simon and Lauren’s house for a few days. One morning, Simon was about to get in the sea and I said: ‘Will you give me away?’ and he replied: ‘Yeah!’ He went off for a swim and when he came back, he said: ‘I’d absolutely love to. It would be an honour.’” Lucy is estranged from her biological father but has almost created a surrogate version in Simon.
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