Simon Cowell Offers Blunt Response to Question About Attempts to Blame Him For Liam Payne’s Death

The last time Simon Cowell saw Liam Payne was a year before the former One Direction singer and solo star plunged to his death in a fall from the third-story balcony of a Buenos Aires hotel on Oct. 16, 2024. Speaking to the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast this week, Cowell described their final meeting and the conflicted feelings he’s struggled with in the time since about his role in thrusting the 31-year-old singer into global fame.

“I saw him a year before this happened. He came over to my house. We talked about his son and being a dad,” Cowell said Cowell said in a Rolling Stone Music Now podcast (Payne talk begins at 40-minute mark) about their discussion of Liam’s now seven-year-old son, Bear, with former partner Cheryl Cole. “I remember saying, ‘Music is not everything, by the way. You’re in a position where you can decide when you want to put something out and when you don’t want to put something out. But don’t let it run your life anymore. Find something else that you’re passionate about that will bring you happiness.’”

Stuck on the question of what, if any role, he played in Payne’s post-fame struggles, Cowell — who put Payne together with fellow solo X Factor UK contestants Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik in 2010 to form the group after Liam’s previous unsuccessful solo attempt on the show — said he still wonders about that himself.

“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?’ I don’t know,” Cowell said. “All I know is having spoken to his mom and dad recently, all they kept telling me was he was so proud of what he had achieved. That music and succeeding to him was everything. Absolutely everything… I wish I could turn back the clock, of course, to that day he came to my house. When I spoke to him that day, if I’m being honest with you, I felt really good about him. I thought, ‘Wow, you seem in a really good place.’”

Cowell, who noted that he keeps in touch with some of his former musical charges, but not all, gave Payne some advice about life in general that day and about being a dad during their three-hour hang. “I didn’t feel worried about him after he left,” said Cowell. “But then of course when I heard the news, probably the only person apart from when I lost my mum and dad, when it hit me really, really bad, someone who’s not family. This is really, really tough.”

Pod host Brian Hiatt asked Cowell if he read any of the comments attempting to cast blame on the America’s Got Talent host for what some fans claimed was his part in Payne’s death and whether that unfounded finger-pointing was hurtful.

“I don’t read any of this stuff because if I did, you would just torture yourself,” Cowell said about speculation based on truth and innuendo. “The idea that you are essentially responsible for somebody’s life 10 years after you’ve signed someone? You can’t do that. You can’t live with them. I always say to anyone, ‘I’m always here if you need me.’”

He clarified that when Payne reached out to him that last time it wasn’t because he said he was in distress, but because he wanted to get together with his mentor and early supporter who he missed chatting with.

“You have that worry for anyone who’s young, whatever career they go into,” Cowell said about his thoughts on the potential pitfalls of young stardom and the ravages of social media on young minds. “Particularly now, I think the world had genuinely never known a time where everything is so divisive in a really bad way. I think social media has made people more unhappy than happy,” he added, noting he “switched off” his cellphone eight years ago for that very reason.

After news of Payne’s death spread, Cowell posted a loving note to Liam on Instagram, writing, “You never really know how you feel about someone until a moment like this happens. Liam, I am truly devastated. Heartbroken. And I feel empty. And I want you to know how much love and respect I have for you. Every tear I have shed is a memory of you.”