Liam Payne apologizes for 'cringe' criticism of One Direction, says it was 'scramble to stay relevant'

Liam Payne has apologized for criticizing his One Direction bandmates amid celebrating six months of sobriety.

The 29-year-old pop star released an emotional video Saturday in which he addressed controversial remarks he made on Logan Paul's Impaulsive podcast in 2022, and revealed that he entered rehab amid the fallout.

"A lot of what I said came from the wrong place. I was so angry at what was going on around me and instead of taking a look inwards, I decided to look outwards at everybody else and I took it out on everybody else, which is just wrong," Payne said in the video. "[Because of] my own frustrations with my own career and where I kind of landed, I took shots at everybody else, which is wrong, so obviously I want to apologize for that in the first instance, because that's definitely not me."

He went on to cite "self-protection" as the reason for lashing out, and praised fellow One Direction members Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and Niall Horan for supporting him.

"The rest of the boys really stuck by me, and when I needed them the most, they kind of came to the rescue," he continued, adding that an ex-One Direction member also stepped up to help. "Even Zayn [Malik], as well, which is why I did send him a little thank you online, actually. It came across really big-headed, didn't it?"

Payne called backlash from the ordeal "hard" to watch, and said that he didn't realize the impact that his words would have on people he cared about, and called the situation "a big L" and "a little bit cringe" in retrospect.

"I kind of had to go away to get better, let's say," he revealed of entering rehab after realizing his statements were a "scramble to stay relevant," and said that he wanted to reconnect with his love for creating music.

"I didn't have my phone for nearly 100 days," he remembered. "I didn't connect with the outside world at all."

Payne previously opened up about struggling with alcohol use at the height of One Direction's popularity.

"When you're doing hundreds and hundreds of [concerts] and it's the same 22 songs at the same time every single day, even if you're not happy, you've got to go out there," he told Men's Health Australia in 2019. "It's almost like putting the Disney costume on before you step up on stage and underneath the Disney costume I was pissed 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."

Watch Payne's apology video above.

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