For Simon Cowell, becoming a dad has both changed and saved him.

The “America’s Got Talent” producer and judge spoke to “The Diary Of A CEO” podcast, where he said he had “reached the point where nothing mattered” after the loss of his parents, Julie and Eric, in 2015 and 1999, respectively.

“I think particularly when I lost my mum, I was on a downward spiral at that point,” he said. “I lost everyone, you know, I’ve lost my parents. It’s finality now. What I said about the material things I’ve got, everything just meant nothing at that point.”

He continued, “It was almost like because of the loss I’d had, I’ve got to find something else to fill it. And it was ‘I’m just going to be a ridiculous workaholic,’ and I was very successful but I wasn’t happy, I really, really wasn’t happy.”

When he learned that his partner Lauren Silverman was pregnant with their first child, his priorities began to shift.

“When I got the call from Lauren, which starts, any call that starts with, ‘Are you sitting down?’ You know what‘s coming next. It was like, ‘Are you sitting down?’ ‘Yes,’ ‘Well,’ and she told me. And yes it did absolutely change, it changed everything in my life. It made me happy again,” Cowell said.

Their son, Eric, was born in 2014.

He concluded that being a dad “without question” saved him.

“I really, really had reached the point where nothing mattered,” Cowell said of his life prior to welcoming Eric. “Even to the point that I almost can’t remember everything from that period.”