Simon Cowell Reveals His Hilarious Brush With The Law At The Age Of 12

After a number of 'American Idol' contestants have been involved in tangles with the law recently, world famous judge Simon Cowell has admitted that he, too, is without an untarnished reputation with the law. Cowell's crime, however, was hijacking a bus with a gun. This was, supposedly, just a prank, as he and a friend decided at the age of 12 that they were going to hijack a bus with a "pea gun".

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The music industry heavyweight recounted the story of his childish antics, by saying: "When I was 12 years old, I hijacked a bus with a pea gun. It's a gun that fires peas and they go about six feet. Myself and a friend were going on a bus and we thought it would be a joke to put the gun to the driver's head and say take us to where we were going. He believed us and I remember sitting on the bus thinking, 'God, this guy's really playing along with this well,' because he didn't stop for 20 miles. We got to the other end and there were police cars waiting for us and they threw us in jail."

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Scotland Yard discovered that the boys were only using pea guns, and therefore any legal repercussions were dropped. However, Cowell still had to contend with his furious mother. Her punishment was less than one might expect, as he explained: "my mum turned up with my dad and she had me picking up stones on a farm for a week as my punishment."

Cowell then went on to explain how funny it was in comparison to the current 'American Idol' scandal, by joking: "if the producers had found out I wouldn't be a judge on American Idol!"