Jade Thirlwall gets candid about 'first industry friend' Liam Payne

Jade Thirlwall, prominently known as the member of girl group Little Mix, has opened about her friendship with late singer Liam Payne.

One commonality between the two singers was that both have been part of the UK’s X-Factor.

Jade won the show in 2011 with her band, which was a year after Payne came third with his boy group One Direction in 2010.

According to her, the Teardops singer was her first friend she made in the industry, and he was extremely supportive of her.

While speaking candidly at the ITV’s The Assembly, Thirlwall shared what kind of person Liam was.

The interviewer asked the 32-year-old, "You were quite close with Liam Payne. There's a lot of difficult stories out there and a lot of negativities surrounding him.”

She was asked to share positive memories she has of the later 31-year-old singer.

Jade opened, "He was the first friend I made in the industry. We both auditioned for X Factor when we were very young.”

As per the Power vocalist, everybody at the X-Factor platform used to say Liam is a 'star'.

"He was just so lovely. He was obviously very talented, he really wanted to make his family proud, which he did.”

She went on to say,” I remember everyone who was on the show at the time saying, 'this person's a star'. You could tell; he literally had the X factor. He was destined to be a musician and a singer."

Former One Direction singer died on October 16, 2024 in Argentina.