Liam Payne’s fellow X Factor star Mary Byrne reveals his struggles

Mary Byrne, who appeared alongside Liam Payne on the X Factor in 2010, says she has found it hard to ‘come to terms’ with his tragic death.

The One Direction singer plunged 45ft from the third floor into the courtyard of the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires on Wednesday aged 31.

Irish singer Mary, 64, who reached the ITV show’s semi final while One Direction finished third, revealed she last time spoke to Liam in 2018 and during their chat he opened up to her about his struggles with fame.

She told The Sun: ‘I wouldn’t say fame wasn’t for him but I would say that they went far too big, far too quick, they literally burned out after five years.’

Mary said that Liam was ‘finding it really tough’ being stuck in hotel rooms as he toured the world and being unable to go out due to crowds of fans. 

‘He said “I am loving it, it is brilliant”, But he said ‘It is hard and it is not what I expected’ those were the words he said.’

She went on: ‘I was following his career and these young men and you are thinking how proud you are. I always felt proud like a mother because I was the Mammy figure in the house. 

Before admitting she cannot even ‘begin to imagine’ what Liam’s mother is feeling in the aftermath of his death. 

Liam was outspoken about how the global fame of One Direction changed his life and affected his relationship with drugs and alcohol, once admitting: ‘I don’t know if I’ve hit rock bottom yet.’

Speaking to Stephen Bartlett on the Diary Of The CEO Podcast in 2021, Liam, admitted: ‘I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be. Where’s rock bottom for me? And you would never have seen it. I’m very good at hiding it’.

‘I don’t even know if I have hit it yet. I can either make that choice now and pick my last moment as my rock bottom or I can make a whole new low.’

He admitted he had suffered for years with ‘social anxiety’ and ‘stress’ from being famous, and discussed the pressure his mental health was under while not having the freedom to go anywhere as a boyband member. 

Saying: ‘It feels to me, like when we were in the band. The best way to secure us was to lock us in our rooms, and what is in the room? A mini-bar. 

‘So I had a party-for-one that seemed to carry on for many years of my life, and then you look back at how long you’ve been drinking? And Jesus Christ that’s a long time, even for someone as young as I am.’

In multiple interviews Liam explained how he’d used alcohol to cope with both the massive success of One Direction and their subsequent split, telling Men’s Health Australia in 2019 that ‘it’s difficult when you have the level of fame that we had in the band.’

‘There have been a lot of people in trouble with mental health that aren’t really getting the help that they need, and I think that’s a bit of a problem in our industry,’ 

‘It’s the same s**t that happens to everyone, that’s been happening since the ’70s. You know what the traps are and if you are lucky enough, like me, to be able to get out of that scenario and back into a sense of normality, then you know it’s a bit different.’

Liam went onto compare going on stage and out in public to ‘putting the Disney costume on,’ admitting: ‘I was [drunk] quite a lot of the time because there was no other way to get your head around what was going on’. 

‘I mean, it was fun. We had an absolute blast, but there were certain parts of it where it just got a little bit toxic.’

It comes after X Factor boss Simon Cowell faced a backlash over Liam‘s death, with contestant  Katie Waissel declaring ‘we all know the truth’ and Rebecca Ferguson criticising the ‘exploitation and profiteering of young stars’.

Waissel, a 38-year-old singer-songwriter who also auditioned during the 2010 series, name-checked Cowell in two statements in which she accused music bosses of focusing on ‘profits rather than people‘.

Cowell, 65, was a judge on X Factor and signed One Direction to his music label, Syco. 

Waissel first took to X to reveal her heartbreak at her friend’s death, writing: ‘My heart is completely torn to shreds right now, I am at an absolute loss for words.

‘If Simon Cowell dare put a statement out on the heart wrenching, tragic loss of my dear and darling friend Liam, he would be a fool. We all know the truth… and I’ll be sure it all comes out.’

Rebecca Ferguson, who also appeared on X Factor in 2010 alongside Payne and Waissel, has previously shared her views that the music industry is hiding ‘awful human rights abuses’ and claimed that she has endured ‘systematic misogyny and bullying’ throughout her career.