An affair, a baby, and the "better than average" effect

Shameless

Shameless Media

Society & Culture

4.7 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2026

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Summary

MONDAY ANALYSIS: Coming up on today’s show: Lauren Cowell, Simon Cowell’s fiancée, has appeared on a podcast, telling the listeners that she has ‘forgiven herself’ for cheating on her husband and falling pregnant with his friend, Simon Cowell, back in 2013. It sparked some big questions for us; why do we feel this eternal gravitational pull to cheating stories? And what is there to learn about human behaviour from them? This episode of Shameless was brought to you by DonateLife. Registering to become an organ donor only takes a minute: be the reason someone has a second chance at life. Also, shout out to Oura! Lauren Cowell Beyond the Headlines: Motherhood, campaigning and entering Her F*ck It Era Your hosts are Zara McDonald (@zamcdonald) and Michelle Andrews (@michelleandrews1). Shameless Podcast is produced by Annabelle Lee and Eilish Gilligan, executive-produced by Lucy Hunt and audio-edited by Eilish Gilligan. Our social media team consists of Naima Fatema, Divya Simmie and Eilish Gilligan, and our partnerships manager is Cindy Luu. Want to support our show? Clicking ‘follow’ on Apple and Spotify is the best way to do that, and we're super grateful to anyone who leaves a five-star review while they're at it. Also! An old-fashioned 'Tell a Friend In Real Life' is equally appreciated. Want more? We've got more… Subscribe to our newsletter Smart, Dumb Stuff: https://tinyurl.com/4yasjphn Follow us on Instagram: https://tinyurl.com/2mf557ux Aaaand we’re on TikTok: https://tinyurl.com/2hchchrp Everything else your heart could ever desire is here: https://linktr.ee/shamelesspodcast Thanks for listening! We’re huge fans of yours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Shameless, the pop culture podcast for smart people who love dumb stuff.
0:17.9	You're joined, as always, by Melbourne writers, Michelle Andrews and
0:21.2	Zara McDonald's. Hi, Zazzy, and hello, producer, Elish Gilligan. Hey. Hey, hey, what's up? What's up? Coming up on today's show. I'm all over the place. She's not trying to put a laptop on the floor. I was like trying to buy some time, to be honest. I didn't want to say What's up?
0:35.1	No, no way that they did.
0:36.8	Yeah, one of those moments in podcasting where you wish you could take it back.
0:39.5	You can't though.
0:41.0	We won't. be honest. I didn't want to say what's up like the way that they did. Yeah, one of those moments
0:37.6	in podcasting where you wish you could take it back. You can't though, even in the edit. It's just a pride. You've got to leave it in. It's part of the episode now. No, no, no, you sacrificed yourself. You did a sacrificial what's up. I did a sacrificial was up to buy you some time to put your laptop down to pick up your phone.
0:52.6	Coming up on today's show, let's talk about that first.
0:55.1	Oh, my God.
0:55.8	Lauren Cowell, Simon Cow's fiancé. buy you some time to put your laptop down to pick up your phone. Coming up on today's show, let's talk about that first.
0:55.1	Oh my God.
0:55.8	Lauren Cowell, Simon Cow's fiancé, has appeared on a podcast telling the audience that she's
1:01.9	forgiven herself for the affair that she and Simon had where they fell pregnant during
1:05.8	it while she was married to somebody else.
1:07.7	Well, she was married to a friend.
1:10.8	They were all friends. Simon and Amanda. to somebody else. Well, she was married to a friend.
1:15.9	Like, well, Simon, Simon and a man were friends.
1:16.4	Andrew.
1:17.4	Andrew, sorry.
1:19.0	Put some respect on Andrew's name.
1:23.4	Simon and Andrew and Lauren were all friendly.
	...

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