Heartbreaking moment Liam Payne 'embarrassed' to meet Justin Bieber remembered

Former The Xtra Factor presenter Konnie Huq remembered the ‘self deprecation’ of the loveable singer on the show

The heart-warming ‘self deprecation’ of Liam Payne has been revealed by presenter Konnie Huq as she recounted how the singer was ‘embarrassed’ when he met Justin Bieber. Former Blue Peter presenter Konnie also worked on the Xtra Factor and got to know Liam well then.

Last night shocking news broke that the 31-year-old had died after a fall from the third floor balcony of his hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Former The Xtra Factor presenter Konnie Huq said she told Liam Payne when Justin Bieber was on the show that he would “be as big as him one day” and Payne was “self-deprecating” but “absolutely did get to that level”.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I actually found out last night (about his death), but ‘just a boy’ is so right, because really all he’s known in his adult, and pre-adult life as well to some extent, is being in the limelight, and, you know, thrust into this position of global fame, not just sort of being known in your own country, but everywhere, essentially.”

She added: “But I do remember we had Justin Bieber on the show, and Liam sort of had the same hairstyle, bore a striking resemblance, and so we got him to come on the show. He was really embarrassed to meet Justin.

“And then afterwards, I was like ‘You will be as big as him one day’ and he was actually kind of self-deprecating, it was quite mature of Liam, of the boys, and, you know, he absolutely did get to that level, but it’s a lot for young people to take on.

“Your brain doesn’t actually fully mature till you’re 25 and if you think he’s, you know… over 10 years before that his journey had already started, and now, with social media and the amount of news channels, you can’t escape that sort of pressure and that level of fame, which I think makes it tougher. We’ve always had stories of sort of massive stars dying young, but I feel that the pressure in general is more in modern living.”

She also said that during Liam’s time on The X Factor with One Direction the make-up room’s walls were “covered in their fan mail” and very early on it was “sort of obvious they were destined to be massive”.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’ve got this photo of them sort of sat in the make-up room, and literally the walls are covered in their fan mail, because we’d often stick up things, and it looked like already they were sort of, you know… my sort of equivalent growing up would have probably been Take That, or I could even go earlier than that.

“But … it looked like they had already made it. And this was before… I think it was maybe even possibly before we’d even gone to judges’ houses – it was really very early on. They were getting a huge amount of fan mail. And that is just a weird thing for when you’re not even sort of properly famous yet, to get that amount, you know, very early on. It was sort of obvious that they were destined to be massive.”

Local police said the 31-year-old singer fell from the third floor into the courtyard of the Casa Sur Hotel in the Palermo neighbourhood of Argentina’s capital, before medics confirmed his death.