Simon Cowell Responds to Claims He Should Be Blamed for Liam Payne’s Death

Simon Cowell is speaking out on the death of his former protégé Liam Payne.

Cowell, 66, was asked by Rolling Stone Music Now podcast in a new interview what he thought about the fact that some people blame him for Payne’s 2024 death, claiming he put too much pressure on One Direction and failed to offer adequate support when they made it big.

“I don’t read any of this stuff because if I did, you would just torture yourself,” Cowell said. “The idea that you are essentially responsible for somebody’s life, 10 years after you’ve signed someone? You can’t do that.”

The music executive was the creator of The X Factor, the competition series on which One Direction came to be in 2010. When the show was over, the group signed to Cowell’s Syco Records label, and their star grew from there.

Payne’s former bandmate Louis Tomlinson has long maintained that the group — which also included Harry Styles, Zayn Malik and Niall Horan – was always taken care of by the adults around them.

“Look, in any situation similar to this, hindsight is a really powerful thing,” he told The Independent in October. “I don’t blame anyone for my experience in One Direction. Was it really hard work? Yes. Did we not have enough days off? Yes.”

Cowell told Rolling Stone that it “really hit me” when he learned of Payne’s death, which came about one year after he last saw the singer.

During the conversation, they discussed fatherhood and their children; Payne was a dad to son Bear, now 8, with ex Cheryl, while Cowell shares son Eric, 11, with fiancée Lauren Silverman.

“I remember saying, ‘Music is not everything. Don’t let it run your life anymore. Find something else that you are passionate about,’” Cowell recalled telling Payne. “You ask yourself that question: ‘Could I have done anything more? What would’ve happened to Liam if he hadn’t been in the band?’”

Cowell said he’d recently spoken to Payne’s parents Geoff and Karen, who repeated that their son had been “so proud of what he had achieved.”

“I wish I could turn back the clock, of course. When I spoke to him that day, I felt really good about him,” he said. “I thought, ‘Wow, you seem in a really good place.’”

Payne was 31 when he fell from a hotel balcony and died in Buenos Aires, Argentina in October 2024. A toxicology report revealed that he had traces of alcohol, cocaine and prescription antidepressants in his system when he died.

Tomlinson told the Independent that Payne’s death is “something I’ll never really accept, I don’t think.”

“Liam would always entertain me. If I was bored and wanted to have a laugh, he would play that role,” he said. “Any opportunity Liam got… he was always, always there for me. Even if he might have been struggling, he put himself second and still turned up. Those moments are really a testament to the truth of who he was as a person.”