Katie Waissel accuses Simon Cowell of “selective storytelling” when discussing Liam Payne’s death

Katie Waissel has written a lengthy social media post in response to recent comments made by Simon Cowell about the death of Liam Payne. 

In the post, Waissell, who took part in ‘X-Factor’ alongside Payne and the rest of One Direction in 2010, repeats previous criticisms about the culture that existed behind-the-scenes on the ITV show, and the impact that has had on past participants ever since. 

Cowell was asked about Payne - who died in October last year after falling from a hotel balcony while under the influence of drugs - during an interview with a Rolling Stone podcast. 

Discussing his thought processes after learning of Payne’s death, Cowell admits “you ask yourself that question - could I have done anything more?” According to Metro, he also reveals that during his last meeting with the former One Direction star, a year before his death, he told Payne that “music is not everything” and that he shouldn’t “let it run your life anymore”. 

Responding to the interview, Waissel writes that - while Cowell seems “reflective” and “concerned” on the podcast - he fails to mention “the systemic pressures, relentless work schedules, emotional manipulation, public shaming structures and unregulated high-stress environments” that defined the experiences of those who took part in ‘X-Factor’, a show co-produced by Cowell’s own Sony Music division Syco. 

Omitting those elements of the ‘X-Factor’ experience, she says, is “not merely selective storytelling”, but an “erasure of the very conditions that contributed to the mental health struggles of multiple artists, including Liam, myself and many others”. 

When Waisell and Payne took part in ‘X-Factor’ back in 2010, she goes on, “none of us were in a position to speak out”. Artists competing on the show “were young, isolated, tightly contracted, bound by NDAs, and operating in what can only be described as survival mode”. 

“The power imbalance was absolute”, she says. “The conditions were psychologically suffocating. We lacked the language, the support and the legal understanding to identify, let alone challenge, what we now know were serious safeguarding and ethical breaches”. 

A number of former ‘X-Factor’ contestants have criticised the way they were treated by producers on the UK version of the talent show and, in some cases, by music industry execs involved in other music projects that came about after their involvement in the programme. 

Rebecca Ferguson, Cher Lloyd, Steve Brookstein and Jedward have also spoken out, while Waissel previously revealed that she sought therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder after suffering panic attacks and suicidal thoughts in the wake of appearing on the series.

Cowell pushes back against some of that criticism in the new interview, as well as suggestions that he should shoulder some of the blame for Payne’s personal struggles and subsequent death. 

On the latter point he says, “The idea that you are essentially responsible for somebody’s life, ten years after you’ve signed someone, you can’t do that”. 

However valid, or not, the various criticisms of the old ‘X-Factor’ machine may be, it seems certain that a similar show today would have a whole different system in place to ensure the wellbeing of any young people taking part. But Waissel believes the industry still has a lot more work to do in this domain. 

She says that her ongoing criticism of Cowell, and all those involved in the ‘X-Factor’ phenomenon, is “not about blame for the sake of blame”. 

It’s “about accuracy, responsibility and the urgent need for accountability and safeguarding reform in an industry that continues to reshape itself publicly while leaving its internal harms untouched”. 

She then concludes, “if Cowell wishes to have public conversations about loss, duty and the ‘what ifs’, then it is vital those conversations include the full truth, not the curated fragments currently being offered”.