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Tulisa’s PA issues apology over Simon Cowell gay claims

By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 24 July 2014

Tulisa Contostavlos’ personal assistant Gareth Varey has issued an apology to Simon Cowell, after a recording of him claiming that the ‘X-Factor’ chief is gay was played during the N-Dubz star’s high profile drugs trial last week.

As previously reported, following the collapse of the trial earlier this week, a spokesperson for Cowell said: “In 2014 the question of whether someone is or is not gay is antiquated. However, the issue was the false suggestion made by Mr Varey that Simon – who is renowned for his honesty and candidness – had thus not been truthful in the public arena and this is what we have been obliged to clarify”.

In a statement yesterday, Varey said: “On 10 May 2013, in the course of seeking to entrap Tulisa, Mazher Mahmood supplied Tulisa, me and others with a lot of alcohol… I can no longer recall all of the details of that evening but I have listened to the recording made by Mahmood. I was clearly very drunk”.

He continued: “At some point and utterly out of the blue Mahmood asked me if Simon Cowell was gay. I said he was. This is not true. I do not know why I said it, but assume it is because I was so drunk and felt that I was giving Mahmood the type of information he was seeking. I am very sorry for this”.