Simon Cowell’s long-time girlfriend broke up with him in September

TV personality Simon Cowell, best known for his nasty and controversial criticisms of contestants as a judge on American Idol, recently had to face the music himself — at least in his personal life.

British newspaper The Daily Mirror reported on November 1 that the 49-year-old recording executive and television producer got dumped by his girlfriend of six years, model and actor Terri Seymour, back in mid-September. The paper quoted Seymour as having told her friends: “We’ve split up. It’s very sad, but we decided to go our separate ways. It just wasn’t working out between us. There’s no one else involved, and we want to remain friends.”

Speculation about a possible breakup surfaced on October 29, when Cowell attended the National TV Awards in London accompanied by U.S. pop singer Sinitta. Although she’s currently married, Sinitta, 42, has been engaged to Cowell in the past.

“Terri phoned Simon and finished it in September, about six weeks ago,” Cowell’s spokesman, Max Clifford, told People on November 1. “They are going to remain close friends. Simon thinks the world of Terri, and that isn’t going to change. He also understands her reason for ending it.”

The couple’s conflicting ambitions for the relationship — especially regarding marriage and children — were well known and may have been a major reason for the breakup, Clifford added: “In the past, Terri has said that she wants kids, but that just isn’t Simon. Nobody else is involved, certainly not on Simon’s side.”

Cowell and Seymour, 34, began dating in late 2002 after she interviewed him for a TV show (although she had already met him about a decade earlier). Their relationship hit a rocky patch in 2006 when News of the World reported that Cowell had been cheating on Seymour with model Jasmine Lennard while Seymour was abroad; both Cowell and Lennard denied the report and said that their association was strictly business.

Simon Cowell began his professional career in the U.K. with recording companies A&R and EMI in the 1980s. He has been an American Idol judge since the popular talent-discovery show began in June 2002, and he is also a judge on the British talent series The X Factor, which began in 2004.