I smashed a record on Cowell's head, says DJ

DJ and record producer Ian Levine has told how he smashed a record over Simon Cowell’s head in a packed nightclub after he tried to force him to play a Sinitta record.

Levine was DJing at gay club Heaven as Cowell was trying to make his then-protege (and later girlfriend) Sinitta a star with her single 'So Macho'.

But in an interview to be screened in Channel 4 documentary 'Queer As Pop: From Gay Scene To Mainstream', Levine said he was angered that the music mogul was trying to cash-in on the gay market.

He said of the track: “It was a step too far. It was a piece of s**t, cynically designed to get the gay record sales.”

Levine, who was the resident DJ at the London gay club at the time in the mid-1980s, said: “Simon brought Sinitta to the DJ booth at Heaven, because I banned the record. I told him I am not playing this s**t, no way – I am not playing 'So Macho'.

“He said ’Here is the record, just put it on’ and I said no. I was cueing a record up to mix, he grabbed it off the record deck and put 'So Macho' on the deck instead and he said ’Play it’.”

Levine, the first producer to work with the then music executive Cowell, went on: “ I saw red and I picked 'So Macho' up and I smashed it on his head and it splintered into about six pieces and he looked at me horrified and stormed out of the DJ booth with Sinitta.”

The documentary to be screened on Friday at 22.55pm looks at the music and social changes in gay culture which have occurred in the past 40 years.