James Arthur has finally spoken out about his recent behaviour, including his text & Twitter spat with Lucy Spraggan, Matt Cardle and One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson and bedding a 17-year-old fan, admitting “I regret everything I’ve done”.
Last years X Factor winner caused a stir last month after he used a homophobic term in a rap aimed at unknown rapper Micky Worthless, branding him a “f**king queer”.
The artists made a public apology following his appearance on the X Factor after the insident, saying: : “It’s been an amazing year for me. There’s been some amazing highs but also some lows.
“I’ve made some very silly mistakes. I want to thank the X Factor for giving me this opportunity.
“I want to say sorry for abusing my position as an X Factor winner because I owe everything to this thing.”
Now the singer has decided to tell the press about his regrets. Speaking to the Sun he said: “I’ve been an idiot. All I can say is it was ego – foolish, foolish pride. I got ideas above my station and I made mistakes. It’s the only excuse I’ve got.”
He also revealed how the incident has effected him and the backlash he received from his comments.
He said: “All my confidence has disappeared because the whole nation thinks I’m a homophobe who looks like a monster,”
“I couldn’t speak to anyone for a week. It was awful. My little sister was being bullied in school and I was receiving constant death threats.
“I stayed in bed for days on end. Any time I tried to get up, I couldn’t. I felt deep, deep shame about my mistakes since winning the show. I kept thinking, ‘What the f**k have I done?'”
He added: “On reflection, it was the most immature, ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.
“The word ‘queer’ was used in the rap which should never have been the case. In society you can’t use language like that. I’m 100 million per cent not homophobic. I despise that label being attached to me.
“I probably look like the archetypal bully. Now people look at me as if I might beat up a gay guy. That really upsets me. I totally understand what I did was wrong. If I could take it back, I would do that in a heartbeat.”
He continued: “What I need you to know is that I do regret everything I’ve done. I abandoned my responsibility as a role model. A 16-year-old kid reading about the things I said and did would probably have lost a lot of respect for me.”
James also denied grooming girls after it emerged he slept with 17-year-old Ellis Shepherdson.
“I’m definitely not a guy who grooms young girls”, he said. Calling himself “an idiot”
James added: “Yes I got into things with girls who only liked me because of who I was. But I learnt my lesson quickly.”
