British pop star Simon Webbe has defended his Blue bandmate Antony Costa after the singer slammed One Direction for their speedy rise to stardom.
Costa, who shot to fame as part of the boyband in 2001, took aim at the newcomers after they broke America with ease following their stint on Simon Cowell's U.K. version of The X Factor in 2010.
He said, "We had to work hard to build up our fan base in pubs and university gigs. It's a different story for One Direction, Blue came through the right route. It's a shame now that doesn't happen. It was more about the music for us. I like to say we did it the right way."
The remarks sparked outrage from One Direction fans on Twitter.com, but Costa's bandmate and pal Webbe has defended him - insisting the comments have been taken out of context.
Taking to his own Twitter page, he writes, "Just want to clear something up regarding AntonyCosta and 1D (One Direction) the way people write stuff in the papers can cause us to look at situations. Because he knows the work you have to put into being a success (if your (sic) lucky) so going back to 1D, what he said was it was different for us an (and) he can't imagine what it's like to be catapulted to stardom overnight. He explained how we did it and that's the end of it."