Matt Agudo/INFphoto.com, Splash NewsSimon Cowell's baby mama is learning firsthand that the past—even a fictionalized version of the past—can come back to haunt you.
Lauren Silverman, who's pregnant with the X Factor judge's first child, made headlines of her own last week when reports surfaced of a so-called "affair" she had with her high-school teacher in the mid-'90s. But Steve Lewis, the English teacher accused of "having a two-month sexual affair" with a then-underage Silverman, is setting the record straight about what actually happened back in the day at Miami Country Day School.
"There was never any month, month-and-a-half or two-month affair between me and a student," Lewis told the New York Daily News via email. "There was a drunken phone call, late at night, for which I am eternally sorry and remorseful and for which I resigned the following day OVER 20 YEARS AGO."
Now 46 and living in Montana, Lewis denied having a full-fledged affair with his former student. He did, however, admit their relationship was "flirtatious."
"Was I naive and even a bit flirtatious with someone nine years my junior? Yes," he wrote. "Was she more sophisticated and wise beyond her years and a socialite even then? Yes."
Lewis denied, however, that he was asked to leave his post at Miami Country Day School over accusations of inappropriate behavior with a minor, explaining, "I left south Florida to get a better job, in 1998!"
That said, he's none too pleased about his name being "dragged through the mud for a mistake that I paid for OVER 20 YEARS AGO."
"I cannot escape to the West Indies or have a team of publicists keep me insulated," he wrote. "I do feel that in the media's desire to smear a woman for having consensual sex outside of marriage, with a somewhat famous personage, I have become the victim, facts and fallout be damned."