Leona Lewis on good terms with Simon Cowell

Leona Lewis thinks Simon Cowell is great, despite leaving his record label.

The X Factor winner was signed to the music mogul's SyCo Music for seven years before announcing in June last year that they had decided to part ways. Now the 30-year-old is back with a new album I Am, and a new label in Island Records, but still has a lot of respect for her former boss.

"The thing is I had been with Simon's label for seven years and it was sort of naturally coming to the end really," she explained to BBC News. "It's all amicable and he's great and has been so supportive but it was just time to move on."

However it wasn't a decision that Leona made lightly. The singer had smash hit singles like Bleeding Love and Run while with SyCo Music and did wonder if she would be able to keep the momentum in her career by making such a big change.

"It was a hard decision because obviously being somewhere for a long time, building relationships, I loved the people I was working with, I had a great team around me," she continued. "I loved working with Simon, so it was a hard decision, but it was just time for me to do something different."

Leona put her heart and soul into I Am, and enjoyed the challenge of creating it in a new environment. While the album looks at relationship breakdowns, it isn't just about romantic ones.

"It's definitely been a process writing this album, I feel like the step away and kind of creating the album by myself really at first, independently, was quite liberating and empowering," she added. "So that is definitely a theme throughout the record. It touches on a lot of different things, different relationships, break-ups that I've been through but also kind of how I felt stepping away from my previous label and going out and doing things alone, it was kind of scary."