London, Feb 28 (IANS) Music mogul Simon Cowell burst into tears as he re-lived the moment he discovered his father had died.

The 50-year-old 'American Idol' judge got to know about his father Eric's death after he called his mother Julie to share his 'euphoria' on his group Westlife getting their first No.1, reports dailymail.co.uk.

'I believed in the band and I wanted to share the news with my mum and dad, and then (came) the news of what had happened and I had to get back to England,' he said.

'I rang both of them to tell them the news and my mum was acting in kind of a strange way and then she called me back and told me,' he added.

He said: 'But you've just got to deal with it, you know, and I went back and realised that your first responsibility is that you've got to look after your mum. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible time, like I said. You believe everyone is going to live for ever and they don't.

'And all the stuff you think you care about, the hit records and stuff like that, it's just meaningless,' he added.