Boy George Regrets Criticizing Liam Payne in Comment Before His Death

Boy George recently reflected on a remark he made about Liam Payne prior to his death in October. During an appearance on the High Performance podcast, the singer recalled coming across a video of the late musician performing and commenting: “He’s off his nut.” George admitted that the comment “wasn’t very nice,” but maintained that it was a reflection of what he had perceived to be true. “I felt it,” he said. “I felt like he was out of control.”

George and Payne didn’t seem to have any consistent communication with one another, barring a brief Twitter spar way back in 2013. But having been active in the music industry for more than four decades, the older artist has been around long enough to recognize patterns and experience a number of hardships himself. When he learned the news of Payne’s death, one of the first artists to come to his mind was Amy Winehouse.

“When it happened, it just hit me the same way that Amy Winehouse hit me,” he said. “It felt so senseless. I was up at five in the morning, and it came up on the American news, and I was literally just like, what the fuck? Like, no, this isn’t real. I could not take it in, and I think everybody felt like that.”

George took so social media in the wake of Payne’s death, sharing a post that read: “How sad is the death of Liam Payne. Just awful news to wake up to. God bless his family. I am absolutely shocked. R.I.P.”

During the podcast appearance, George recalled seeing “heartbreaking” images of the young artist’s father visiting the Argentina hotel where Payne died after falling from a balcony. He also remembered being “appalled” by comments where he was accused of only caring about the tragedy “because he’s good-looking.”

“I was like fuck off, you’re an idiot,” George said. “I care about his family. I was quite tearful about it. I actually really felt very sad.”