James Arthur: I wish I knew it was all going to work out okay in the end

​And after the tumultuous ride he has been on since winning The X Factor in 2012, he is in no short supply.

The Middlesbrough native was propelled to stardom overnight after winning Simon Cowell’s talent show, but the success took a toll on his mental health and he struggled with drug use.

His career almost entirely derailed in 2014 when he parted ways with Cowell’s Syco label.

As he started to turn things round again, a romantic ballad in the form of Say You Won’t Let Go arguably became his saving grace. The track, which became the lead single of his 2016 second album Back From The Edge, pulled on heart strings across the world, becoming a viral hit.

“I wish I knew it was all going to work out okay in the end”, says Arthur as he reflects on life after the talent show.

“I wish I’d not buried my head as much as I did.”

The singer explains others did try and help him at this stage, but he was not in a place to hear it.

“I shut a lot of people out, including my own family and friends, because I didn’t really know how to cope with it.”

Whilst his time on the show may have kickstarted a bumpy journey, he does feel the experience quickly brought him up to speed on life in the industry.

“It was being thrown into the deep end really”, the now 35-year-old tells me over a video call.

“But it definitely taught me a lot about what to expect from the music business.

“It’s a cutthroat business, its the Wild West, there’s not really any rules like there is in a lot of other industries.”

However, Arthur has had his own personal issues to contend with long before his time on The X Factor. In a 2022 BBC documentary, he opened up about how he has struggled with depression and anxiety for decades.

He has returned to exploring these complex emotions in his new album Bitter Sweet Love.

“I think I’ve just always been around it”, he says of the recurring theme of toxic relationships in the record. “I’ve experienced it in my personal life, it’s things I’ve seen.

“For some reason, those are the kind of demons I exercise when I make music.”

The 13-track record sees him return to his acoustic singer-songwriter roots, with an abundance of heart-wrenching ballads on offer which pair perfectly with his raspy, tortured vocals.

James Arthur’s new album Bitter Sweet Love is out now and the UK leg of his tour kicks off on March 5.