Rebecca Ferguson tried reaching out to X Factor co-star Liam Payne
The singer-songwriter said she was ‘in denial, shocked and hurt’ after it was announced Payne had fallen to his death in Buenos Aires.
Rebecca Ferguson said she had attempted to contact her former X Factor co-star Liam Payne a week before his death because she had been “worried about him for a while”.
The singer-songwriter, who appeared in the final of The X Factor with One Direction in 2010, said she was “in denial, shocked and hurt” after Payne fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“I’m upset with the people that profit from him, why were you allowing this person to spiral,” Ferguson said on a live X Space with One Direction fans.
“I just can’t get my head around why no one intervened, why no one was stepping in, why he had no security with him, where was the security person?”
Ferguson said she had attempted to contact Payne “last Saturday”.
“I sent a message to some of the fans and I said ‘I’m really worried about Liam, how do I get in touch with him?’ and no one knew how,” the 38-year-old said.
“They said ‘don’t bother with management’, because I was going to send an email to them.
“But I’ve been worried about him for a while because I could see that he was not in a good place, and I thought he might have been triggered by a lot of the stuff that has been in the news here lately as well.”
Ferguson said she joined the live X chat, titled Liam and Directioners, because “I wanted to feel that I was part of something” following the singer’s death aged 31.
“I’m so heartbroken for that little lad that I knew,” she said.
Discussing her time with Payne on The X Factor, she continued: “When we all lived together, and we toured together, we were like a family.
“So I just keep picturing that young boy, I just keep picturing how happy he was.
“I’m still in a bit of shock.”
But the singer said that it was “so lovely that he was so loved”.
It comes after Ferguson posted a statement on X, describing Payne as “young, innocent and unaffected by fame” when they met at London Euston train station and shared a taxi together to the X Factor studio.
“If he hadn’t jumped on that train and jumped in that taxi I believe he would be alive today,” she wrote.
Representatives for Payne have been contacted for comment.
