Simon Cowell's engagement wasn't during the happiest times

Sources have reported the couple's engagement wasn't under the happiest circumstances. Photo / Getty Images

An insider close to Simon Cowell and fiancée Lauren Silverman have suggested the couple's engagement wasn't under the happiest circumstances.

Page Six broke the news of Cowell's engagement yesterday, but latest developments have revealed an inside source who is suggesting the pair were in "crisis".

The source exclusively told The New York Post: "They had reached a difficult point in the relationship – you might call it a crisis. There was misery.

"Perhaps she had made it clear that she was not going to stick around unless they got married."

Cowell and Silverman share Eric, their 7-year-old son together who was reportedly present during the proposal and despite sources telling People the couple "are both super happy", others have reported another side of the story.

"I know that Simon got her an engagement ring about a year after the pregnancy was announced … but he then put it away in a safe and made it clear that he didn't want to get married after all," shared the source.

"She's a nice middle-class girl and she always wanted to get married. Her mum said that she trusted Simon to 'do the right thing' before Eric was born. Well, she's been waiting a long time – and so has Lauren."

Simon Cowell pictured with fiancée Lauren Silverman and son Eric Cowell. Photo / Getty Images

Cowell's longtime colleague hinted the engagement was more about his loved son.

"Everything he does now is about Eric and his legacy," he said. "He wants to give Eric legitimacy."

Silverman met Cowell in 2004 while still married to her husband Andrew who at the time was a good friend of the America's Got Talent judge.

The Silvermans finalised their divorce in 2013, and Cowell later admitted he had an affair with her while she was still married.

"[The affair] is not something I am proud of or wanted to happen in terms of hurting anyone," he said in 2013.

"It just happened … But then, of course, you have a baby, and you look at the baby and you kinda go, 'This is what happened from it.' "

At the time of the birth of his son Eric in 2014, Cowell gushed about being a father.

"I never knew how much love and pride I would feel," he wrote.

The engagement comes after Cowell's previous comments where he declared marriage wasn't something he was considering.

"I don't believe in marriage, not in this business," he has said.