James Arthur 'wanted to commit suicide' when Simon Cowell dropped him from his label

James Arthur has opened up about the harrowing time after he was dropped from Simon Cowell’s record label, with the singer admitting that he reached rock bottom and was even considering suicide.

James won The X Factor in 2012 but was embroiled in controversy in the year after his win, getting in a Twitter spat with Mickey Worthless and stunning fans when he used a homophobic slur against the rapper.

The derogatory language ended up being the final straw for Simon, who dropped him from his SyCo record label.

Three years later, James has worked hard to win back Simon’s respect and recently celebrated another number one single under the music mogul’s guidence, but the star has now admitted that he very nearly didn’t get his second chance.

Speaking to the Evening Standard, James shared: “If I was ever near a balcony, or in my car, I’d have an image of me jumping over or driving off the road.

“But then I’d think, ‘Don’t do it, you’ve got sisters, you’re the man of the family.’ But there was many a time I thought of it.

“When I was firing away on Twitter no one was calling me up to say: ‘You’re wrecking your career’. Nobody.”

And the singer went on to admit that he was tempted to say ‘no’ to Syco when they called him and asked to resign him after hearing his new track.

James explained: “I probably shouldn’t say this, but there was a part of me that thought: ‘F**k you, I might have a hit single here and I don’t need Syco. I could stick the finger up to them’.

“But they said: ‘Please let us back in. We want to be part of this amazing story’. And it made sense to me. I’m a sucker for that story. Syco are notorious for dropping people, so what a compliment it is for them to re-sign me.

“So I thought, ‘Let’s do the full circle’.”

We reckon Simon is incredibly glad that he did!