Simon Cowell was left shocked recently when Harry Styles called him to reminisce about One Direction

Harry's phone call was inspired by listening to Simon discuss the band on Steven Bartlett's 'Diary Of A CEO' podcast in June.

Simon told HELLO! magazine: "It was great to hear from him. He said listening to the podcast reminded him of what a great a time we had together.

"I thought it said so much about him that he would bother to make that phone call."

Meanwhile, Simon admitted on the podcast that he had one huge regret about his time with One Direction.

He said: "The one thing I regret is I should have kept the name. I should have owned the name. That's the problem. When you give an artist the name, it's not yours. And that's my only regret. So if you're listening, I'll buy it back from you.

"If one of the band members, for whatever reason, say they don't want to tour, it can stop the others [from] touring. So, if it was me who owned the name, it wouldn't be a problem.

"That was me being very naive. Next time I need to own the name."

Simon also revealed he was always confident that One Direction would be a huge success.

He said: "It was obvious as soon as they went on the show that they would be really really successful. They were the perfect group. They made a lot of money.

"I told them to never complain about paparazzi because they are going to take your pictures, don't complain about invasion of privacy because people will always want to have a picture with you, don't complain about the long hours.

"I told them if any of the above is going to be a problem then do something else because all this will happen. I told them about the gruelling schedule - it comes with the territory. It just comes with it, you will lose a lot of privacy.

"If you want to be an accountant you won't have any of these issues but it won't be as fun."