He’s the man who made billions cringe, laugh, and cry on television for two decades. The sharp-tongued Brit in the black T-shirt who could crush dreams with a single raised eyebrow. But behind the cameras, Simon Cowell has just done something so quietly devastating that even his closest friends only found out this week.

At 66, Simon has rewritten his will, and the new clause is only eight lines long. Yet it will change thousands of canine lives forever.

Sources who have seen the legal document confirm: approximately $25 million (£19 million) of Cowell’s personal fortune has been placed into a dedicated charitable trust called “The Squiddly, Diddly, Freddy, Daisy & Buddy Foundation”, named after his own rescued Yorkshire Terriers, past and present. The money is to be distributed over the next fifty years exclusively to small, no-kill dog shelters across the UK and US that take in the cases no one else wants: the old, the sick, the aggressive, the “unadoptable.”

No children. No nieces or nephews. No distant cousins hoping for a windfall. Just dogs.

A longtime associate who was in the room when Simon signed the papers says the music mogul looked up and shrugged: “People will get their knickers in a twist because Eric isn’t mentioned in that part, but he’s fine. He’ll never need for anything. Dogs do. When I’m dead, I don’t want flowers or a minute’s silence on some talent show. I want kennels paid for, vet bills covered, and a few hundred old mutts who think no one loves them to wake up every morning with a full belly and a warm bed.”

The decision was apparently triggered two years ago, on a night no one knew about until now.

Simon had flown to Los Angeles for a quick America’s Got Talent meeting. At 2 a.m., unable to sleep, he started scrolling through rescue pages on Instagram. He stumbled across a tiny shelter in rural Georgia that was hours away from closing because they couldn’t afford heartworm treatment for 27 dogs. On impulse, he wired them $60,000 from his phone, then sat on the hotel floor and cried for twenty minutes, something those closest to him say they have literally never seen.

From that night on, he became obsessed. He began anonymously funding shelters himself, sometimes two or three a month, always on the condition that his name never be used. Staff would just find an envelope of cash in the mailbox or an overnight wire from a company called “Squiddly Holdings Ltd.”

When his lawyer finally asked why he didn’t publicise any of it, Simon reportedly answered: “Because then it becomes about me. And it’s not about me. It’s about the dog that’s been in Cage 14 for 900 days because he’s missing an eye and growls at men. That’s who it’s about.”

The new trust is structured so cleverly that even if the entire Cowell estate were to be fought over in court, the dog money is untouchable, ring-fenced in perpetuity. Every year on Simon’s birthday (October 7), the trustees must publish a simple one-page update: number of dogs currently supported, average length of stay before adoption or sanctuary placement, and a single photograph of one dog who would have been euthanised without the fund.

Nothing else. No gala dinners, no red carpets, no naming rights.

Just one photo of one saved dog, every year, until 2075.

Those close to the project say Simon’s only specific request was that if a dog is in the programme for more than two years and is truly happy where he or she is, the shelter is allowed to call it “home for life” and use the money to keep them there forever, no pressure to adopt out.

He apparently told the trustees: “Some of us never get adopted either. We just need someone who doesn’t give us back when it gets hard.”

Last week, a small rescue in Manchester quietly received the first official payment from the new trust: £180,000 to expand their senior-dog wing. The woman who runs it still has no idea the money ultimately comes from Simon Cowell. She was simply told the donor wished to remain anonymous but wanted the new wing named “The Squiddly Suite.”

She cried when she read the email.

Simon, meanwhile, is said to be back in his Los Angeles home, walking his current pack of rescues along the beach at sunrise, wearing the same black T-shirt he’s worn for twenty years, already planning the next shelter he’ll save before anyone realises it was him.

He won’t confirm or deny any of this if asked. He’ll probably just roll his eyes and change the subject.

But somewhere tonight, an old three-legged terrier in a shelter no one has ever heard of is asleep on a new orthopaedic bed that will still be paid for long after the man who once told the world “that was dreadful” has taken his final bow.

And for the first time in his life, Simon Cowell doesn’t care if you give him a standing ovation.

He just wants the dogs to have somewhere safe to lay their heads when he’s gone.