Niall Horan Credits Katy Perry for ‘X-Factor’ Success: “If It Wasn’t for Her, I Wouldn’t Be Here”

Niall Horan took the time to thank Katy Perry for putting him through the audition rounds of The X Factor during his latest appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden.

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As chance would have it, Horan appeared on the talk show with Orlando Bloom, Perry’s husband. Sitting next to the actor reminded him that if the “California Gurls” singer hadn’t vouched for him, his One Direction days would never have been.

Horan appeared on The X Factor in 2010. After failing to make it through as a solo artist, Perry and the rest of the judges decided to team him up with his fellow 1D bandmates, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson. But before he could meet his boyband’s fate, Perry had to save him from elimination on day one.

“Is that the moment that really changed your whole thing?” Bloom asked after Corden played a clip of Horan’s audition.

Horan response? “My audition was going very south, Orlando,” he said. “If it wasn’t for her, I definitely wouldn’t be here, and she knows it.

“Little did I know what was to come afterward, but if it wasn’t for Katy … When we see each other, still, we have an embrace.”

Check out the moment, below.

After talking about his X Factor days, Horan performed a live rendition of his latest release, “Heaven.” Still sitting on the couch between Corden and Bloom, Horan busted out an acoustic guitar and began to sing God only knows where this could go / And even if our love starts to grow out of control.

“If you know it, sing along, or don’t,” Horan told the audience. “If you don’t know it, don’t try ’cause it always ends up sounding horrific.”

“Heaven” is set to appear on Horan’s third album, The Show, available on June 9.

“I couldn’t possibly be more happy to tell you that my new album The Show will be released on June 9th,” Horan wrote on Instagram. “This album is a piece of work I’m so proud of and now it’s time to pass it over to you to go and make it your own.”

(Photo by Daniele Venturelli/Daniele Venturelli / Getty Images)

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