Simon Cowell and Lauren Silverman have banned son Eric from social media
As she calls for urgent action to make the Internet safer for children, Simon Cowell’s fiancée Lauren Silverman has revealed they have banned their son from social media.
Simon Cowell and his fiancée Lauren Silverman have banned their son from social media.
Lauren, 48 – who has 12-year-old son Eric with Cowell with TV mogul Simon and an older son, Adam, 20 – made the admission as she called for urgent action to make the Internet safer for children.
Warning current safeguards are failing families and putting young lives at risk, Lauren, who has been with TV mogul Simon, 66, since 2013, spoke out after the UK government agreed to introduce stronger, age-based restrictions for under-16s following sustained pressure from bereaved parents.
The mother-of-two said her views were shaped both by her own family decisions and by meetings with campaigners including Ellen Roome, whose son died after allegedly copying online content.
Lauren said in an opinion piece written for The Sun: “When I heard what had happened to 14-year-old Jools Sweeney, it broke my heart.
“After he had been playing happily with his friends one afternoon, his mother Ellen Roome came home to find his lifeless body in his bedroom.
“Jools was one of several British children who died in 2022 having seemingly copied a deadly challenge shown on TikTok.
“I thought, ‘God forbid, this could have been my child’.”
She added: “My youngest son Eric, 12, isn't much younger than Jools was, and my eldest Adam, 20, is close to the age Jools would be now.”
Lauren said she and Cowell had since met Ellen and backed the ‘Raise the Age’ campaign, which calls for the minimum age for social media access to be increased from 13 to 16.
She went on: “There is no issue more important to parents right now. It's what everyone cares about. Making social media safe is the topic that dominates all my parent group chats.”
Lauren also revealed her family had taken its own precautions.
She said: “Me and Simon won't allow our son Eric to access social media.
“We recently gave him a brick phone so he can communicate with his friends by text and WhatsApp.
“A lot of his friends use Snapchat, but I said no to that platform because I believe it is one of the least safe products.”
Lauren also raised concerns about platforms including Discord, Pinterest and CapCut, warning parents cannot be expected to monitor all online activity.
She said: “It is unreasonable to expect parents to monitor everything their children do online.
“Instead, it should be the government which keeps them safe.
“The evidence we hear is sick. The tech companies knew their platforms were addictive and yet they kept going, inventing new ways to keep our children hooked.”
Lauren also hit out: “In my opinion, these firms put profits ahead of children's safety, and that is absolutely unacceptable.”
