Remember Cher Lloyd, the U.K. singer who had hits with "Want U Back" and the Demi Lovato collab "Really Don't Care" in the 2010s? She never fully broke through in the U.S., and she claims in a new interview that one reason is because her record company wanted her to use sex to do it.
Appearing on the We Need to Talk podcast, Cher alleges that when she asked her record company for some money to promote her music, they refused and said it wasn't in the budget. "I was told ... what I needed to do to make this record take off was hit some of the clubs and find out where [Justin] Bieber is and go try and get with him."
She added that at the time she was with the man who would become her husband, and he was actually in the room when, she claims, "I was told they weren't gonna spend money on the album [and] to hook up with someone mega famous and leech off of the back of someone else's fame."
"Was I not good enough? Was I not good enough to invest in that you would rather use me in that way?" she asks rhetorically. "They didn't care."
In another part of the interview, Cher recalls being on the U.K. TV show X Factor at the same time as the boys in One Direction. "I've never met such caring, lovely guys," she says. "And they were young, same as me, but they were all such good people. No ego. Decent people who loved to sing as much as I did."
Remembering late 1D singer Liam Payne, Cher says, "He [sang] from his heart and it was a gift. Liam had a gift. And I just think I'll always remember that about him. There was no one quite like him."