James Arthur reveals Liam Payne reached out for chat about fame after X Factor victory

James Arthur won The X Factor in 2012. He has revealed in a television interview that One Direction singer Liam Payne, who died aged 31 in a hotel balcony fall in October, got in touch with him for chat after his victory.

One Direction were on The X Factor two years before that, and by 2012 were one of the biggest bands in the world - although only came third when they appeared on the show.

Payne would go on to have struggles with addiction and substance abuse, and Arthur has spoken many times about his anxiety and battle with addiction.

Arthur said in a television interview on Lorraine that Payne had set up a conversation between the two.

“By no means were me and Liam sort of best mates or anything like that,” he said. “I think he was just sort of like… at the time when I came up One Direction were obviously the biggest thing in the world. And they were on The X Factor, I think, a couple of years before me.

“And when I won the show and publicly struggled a little bit, he reached out to a mutual friend of ours and requested to have a one-to-one with me and have a chat with me. Like I say, although we weren’t close, I’ll never forget how kind he was at that time. He went out of his way to be like, ‘I went through this’, and that’s the kind of person he was.

“I didn’t know him really well, but any time I encountered Liam he was concerned with my wellbeing, every time. So it was a shame to see, you know, what happened.”