"American Idol" judge Simon Cowell tells ExtraTV that, as an English teen, he didn't like being told what to do.

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He even admitted to having been expelled from high school.

"I think one or two schools I was expelled from, yeah," Cowell said during an interview. "Whatever I was told not to do, I would do: drinking, smoking or any of that kind of stuff."

But Cowell did say the one thing he knew he wanted to do was go into show business. He lived next door to a man who ran MGM Studios in England, Cowell told ExtraTV, and he admired the man and wanted to do what he did.