Simon Cowell's 89-year-old mother, Julie, recently died after a lengthy health battle that was kept out of the public eye and he has now revealed that he was so touched by the support he received from One Direction following her passing. 

Speaking to The Sun newspaper, the music mogul explained that the 1D heartthrobs sent him some incredibly kind messages after the news of his mother's death broke:

"God almighty, I’ve got to tell you with what happened with my mum these are the nicest bunch of people. You know, that’s when you really get to know someone, when something happens to you, when it’s outside of music and outside of record sales. I just went ‘Christ’ after I saw the messages they sent me. They’ve always been really kind, nice people."

Referring to his mother's health problems, Cowell added: “She’d been ill for a very long time. It really happened last year and it was a tough, tough period. But I didn’t want to burden anyone else with my problem. That’s why I never talked about it. In a way, that was the hardest part because it was always on your mind. But look, I experienced it with my dad and the only thing I can say is that I have incredible memories.”

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Watch One Direction talk about their Action/1D campaign below: