Simon Cowell to be bedridden from spinal surgery for six more months

The king of cranky is about to be a lot more perturbed.

Simon Cowell, the star and producer of “America’s Got Talent,” is taking longer to heal than expected from spinal surgery after he broke his back in three places this past summer. He is currently on a regimen of very strong painkillers and must remain confined largely to his bed, where he has round-the-clock care by nurses, according to The Sun.

He’s also required to wear a brace.

Despite initial good news and optimism — his co-star Howie Mandel reporting in August that Cowell was “doing spectacularly well, considering,” and confirming Cowell was already walking around — things have taken a turn for the worse.

New speculation is that Cowell will be out of commission for at least six more months and is in a lot of pain —and he won’t even record messages for “AGT” from his bed.

“It’s been a rough few weeks,” a friend told the Sun. “Simon’s a fighter and fairly gung-ho. Naturally, he thought he’d be out of action for a few weeks and then, if not doing iron man contests, at least be back on the showbiz circuit. Instead, he’s had a setback from surgery to fuse two vertebrae and it has proven more complicated than a standard break.”

Cowell is being looked after at his Malibu spread by his girlfriend Lauren Silverman, the mother of their 6-year-old son Eric.

While Cowell was thinking of taping messages for “AGT” and its sister show “Britain’s Got Talent,” he has since nixed the idea.

“Simon is joking and in decent spirits,” a source told The Sun. “But he’s also quite vain and the idea of going on national TV with no studio make-up, and while on heavy-duty medication, didn’t appeal. So, unfortunately, he had to decline producers’ requests.”