Aston Merrygold has taken aim at Liam Payne after he seemingly blamed his mental health struggles on One Direction.
Fellow X Factor alum Merrygold, who is part of boyband JLS, slammed Payne for his comments, saying it all “comes with the job”.
Speaking to The Sun newspaper’s Bizarre column, Merrygold said: “You are your own boss. It’s not that you were not allowed to do something. He was in the biggest band on the planet and there were thousands of people outside the hotel. So it was probably a safety thing.
“It comes with the job. You sign away your privacy. I think you should expect everything, expect it all and say, ‘This is what I want to work for’.
“If you don’t want any of those things then you should not start it because it (the downside) does come and when it does come there are going to be bits that you don’t like.”
Earlier this year, Payne said he had felt “trapped” in “lonely hotel rooms”, which he says “really fucked me up”.
He went on: “We were always locked in a hotel room at night. Then it would be car, hotel room, stage, sing, locked (away).
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“So it looked like they pulled the dust cloth off us and let us out for a minute and then we back underneath it.
He added: “There were points where it was toxic and difficult. Don’t get me wrong, we had the best time ever, but… you don’t realise you have a choice at that point.”
Merrygold added in another interview: “People like doctors save lives every single day. Not every single thing in life is black and white, there are going to be downsides of every job.
“If you want to be an artist and go and sing you don’t just have to sing, this is a business. It’s the music industry. You can’t just be a singer.”
Aston, who competed on X Factor in 2008, added: “Were we pushed (in JLS)? We pushed. We pushed people as we wanted to do more.
“A lot of people clock off at 5pm but I don’t clock off at 5pm. I am back on the job whenever I have to be.”
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