As ex-partners go, Sinitta Malone and Simon Cowell are undeniably an odd example.
Who among us can say they have a "psychic bond" with their ex, who pays us alimony 30 years on and hires us to wear nothing but carefully-placed palm leaves?
Throughout Sinitta and Simon's decades-long love story has been jealousy, passion and a sex "mystery".
And Sinitta, who turns 58 on Tuesday, has even claimed her romance with Simon didn't really end until he had son Eric, seven.
The pair first met when Sinitta was 14, and she became his first signing as a record boss.
Sinitta raised eyebrows in 2003 when she claimed that their relationship had never been consummated because she rejected his advances early on, believing they weren't romantic enough.
"After that rejection he never initiated love-making with me again, even though we often shared a bed. I don't think he ever forgave me. I was always trying to attract him but he never laid a hand on me again," she said.
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For Simon's part, he kept quiet and years later Sinitta suddenly backtracked, insisting: "We did have a proper physical relationship. I don’t know how this idea we didn’t has come about."
However, a tragedy suffered by both would eventually prove that the relationship had been physical.
Back in the 1980s, the couple were forced to make a heartbreaking decision when Sinitta fell pregnant but knew she couldn't carry to term due to an undisclosed medical condition.
After much soul-searching, they opted for a termination - an ordeal that Sinitta said affected them both deeply.
"It was upsetting and it was something very difficult that we dealt with together. It’s such a heartbreaking thing to go through. It was devastating for both of us," she told The Sun, revealing how they adopted a puppy as part of the healing process.
Meanwhile, jealousy would begin to cloud their relationship as Sinitta said Simon "brought out the possessive woman" in her.
"Even before he was Simon Cowell, the big mogul, women were attracted to him, and as a young girl dating him, I felt terribly threatened because he was always such a flirt," she told HELLO!.
The situation was so tempestuous that Sinitta repeatedly ended things to find someone new, but always ended up back in Simon's arms.
"I’d go off and find somebody else. Then he’d see me and not like that," she told The Mirror in 2011.
"He’d do weird things to p*** my boyfriend off and then, of course, I’d go back to him. I dated David Essex for a bit and he’d be just winding him up. He’d be like ‘look how old he is... he could be your grandad... look at his hair’. He’d just pick holes so I’d go off them and go running back to him."
It was during one of the pair’s splits in 1988 that Sinitta dated then-up-and-coming actor Brad Pitt for two years.
But after she split from Brad, she and Simon would not get back together this time as Simon had "friend-zoned" the So Macho singer.
Revealing how she coped with the transition, the mother-of-two told Closer : "I used to suffer with jealousy sometimes, which is why Simon and I would always break up.
"But once you transition into the friend zone, there’s nothing to argue about or get upset about anymore."
She remains close to the 62-year-old, and he is godfather to her children, Magdalena and Zac, who she shares with ex-husband Andy Willner.
But in 2017 she admitted she still harboured a physical attraction towards Simon, explaining it was like being 'brainwashed'.
"There’s still sexual chemistry between Simon and I, I still fancy him – there are lots of things I find very attractive about him, but I’ve been programmed to like Simon," she told The Mirror.
"I think he brainwashed me to like him. It’s more than just sex. If it were just about sex our connection would’ve fizzled out years ago, but it’s more than that."
And she believes she and Simon are so tight that they share a "psychic bond" that alerted him when she secretly contracted coronavirus in 2020.
"I caught the virus after doing a club gig. Next day I felt as if I’d swallowed a packet of razor blades. I was in bed for about a week. I didn’t tell Simon I was ill but it wasn’t long before he got in touch," she told the Sunday Mirror.
"When he got through, Simon said, 'You’ve got it [the virus] haven’t you?' And I said, 'How do you know?'
"He said, 'I knew it. I could just tell because you disappeared. I knew you didn’t want to worry me.'
"He told me, 'We have this weird connection, I can just tell when something’s wrong'."
Simon sent a private health team to check her out, and even made sure her mum and kids kept safely away until she was no longer infectious.
Simon has previously admitted to paying off some of his exes in a kind of unofficial alimony, though he insists it's "rare" and doesn't extend to all his former lovers.
But asked by The Guardian if the payments included more than one girlfriend, Simon replied: "Probably yeah. You can’t have somebody in your life who’s become accustomed to a certain thing, and just because you don’t want to be in the relationship any more say to them, no everything is cut off."
He added: "It’s not alimony. It’s, I believe, doing the right thing. That comes back to me wanting them to be happy, you just can’t do it too many times."
But Sinitta has confirmed she isn't on his payroll aside from her multiple appearances on The X Factor.
"I’m not paid an allowance by Simon," she said on This Morning.
"He doesn’t pay my lifestyle. People think I’m on some crazy payroll and I have to behave a certain way."
The music mogul welcomed his son Eric with girlfriend Lauren Silverman back in 2014, and it was only then that Sinitta really believed their romance was over.
She told New Magazine: "There was always an element of, 'Well, it’s never really over.'
"But when Eric was born, that was it. I would never come between his family.
"[Lauren] and I were best friends. I’m really happy for them, but it was hard and caused a fallout. I adore Eric and he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them."
However, Sinitta, whose 1986 hit So Macho was Simon’s first pop success, believes Simon and Lauren are great together and insists there are no hard feelings any more.
"I think he’s met his match – they have so much in common, they suit each other and I think they deserve to be together," she said.
"Lauren has made my best friend extremely happy and he’s finally found the woman he truly loves."
Sinitta calls Simon a "loyal friend" and admitted she doesn't think he will have any more children, because he is so "fulfilled and satisfied" with Eric.
"I think he's so in love with Eric that there just isn't any love left," she explained.
"He's completely besotted, such a softie."
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