Justin Hawkins has no regrets about mocking Liam Payne prior to his death because he had no idea the singer was struggling. The Darkness frontman posted a video on his YouTube channel in March 2023 titled "What a F****** Muppet" in which he analysed the One Direction star's appearance on Logan Paul's 'Impaulsive' podcast in 2022 - branding him "arrogant" and comparing him to Ricky Gervais' 'The Office' character David Brent - and Justin refused to take the clip down after Payne plunged to his death at a hotel in Argentina in October 2024. However, Justin is adamant he couldn't have predicted the singer's "grim" demise and he doesn't want to rewrite history by taking the clip down.
He told The Independent newspaper: "[The way Liam Payne came across on the podcast] did not look to me as a grim portent for an untimely demise. "Instead it looked like somebody like me, trying to make an impression in an interview and getting it wrong and coming across like David Brent. "And it was funny, because it was funny, you know? So I laughed at it.
"Why would I lie about having laughed at that stuff? I didn’t see [Payne] as an individual who was in a decline; it didn’t look like that thing when you voyeuristically and morbidly watch someone like Amy Winehouse fall apart and go: 'Oh, it’s only [a matter] of time' instead of trying to intervene." Justin went on to compare his own situation to Payne's because he also spent years struggling with addiction issues before eventually getting .
