Boy George has shared his regret at comments he made before Liam Payne died.
The former One Direction singer died aged 31 on October 16 when he fell from the third floor balcony of the hotel room he was staying in while holidaying in Argentina.
In the weeks before Payne’s death, Culture Club frontman Boy George had remarked on a video posted online of the That What Makes You Beautiful hit-maker that he appeared “off his nut”.
With the benefit of hindsight, Boy George - real name George O’Dowd - now believes that was wrong of him to say.
Opening up on the subject on the latest episode of the High Performance podcast with Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes - released the day of Payne’s funeral - he explained: “In the case of Liam Payne, I’d watched him a few days before it happened. I remember watching online and I’d actually put a message under a post saying ‘He’s off his nut’, which wasn’t very nice, but I felt it. I felt like he was out of control.
“And when it happened, it just hit me, the same way that Amy Winehouse hit me, because it felt so senseless.”
He also spoke of his total shock upon hearing the news that Payne had died, believing at first that it was not true.
“I was up at five in the morning, and it came up on the American news, and I literally was like ‘What the f**k?’ I was literally like ‘No, this isn’t real’. I couldn’t take it in,” he said during the interview.
He added: “I care about his family. I watched the dad, heartbreaking. I was quite tearful about it. I actually really felt very sad.”
The Do You Really Want To Hurt Me hitmaker previously clashed with Payne following the 2013 BRIT Awards.
Boy George had taken his 13-year-old niece to the awards show and slated Payne online afterwards, claiming he had refused to have a photograph with her.
“Top marks to Harry Styles for stopping for a picture with my niece and B****x’s to Liam and the disrespectful w****r of a minder!” he wrote on Twitter (now known as X) almost a decade ago.
Not having any of it, Payne hit back: “@BoyGeorge now now boy lets not tell porkies. Firstly thanks for getting my name wrong three times, then asking me where is liam?…awkward. Then when you finally got it right saying you wanted Niall instead.
“If you would have asked me for a picture i would have stopped bro I just did what you said and pointed niall out for you so u just keep wearing ur strange hats and enjoy yourself my little Georgie pie… It’s still not cool you just look weird.”
