Liam Payne, a former member of One Direction, has died at the age of 31 after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires.
Who was Liam Payne?
Payne rose to prominence as a member of English-Irish boyband One Direction, alongside Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson. He first caught the attention of fans in 2008, at the age of 14, when he auditioned for the The X-Factor with a cover of Frank Sinatra's 'Fly Me To The Moon', before being placed in the group that would ultimately change his life.
By 2010, One Direction had become an overnight success and went on to become one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. They released albums Up All Night in 2011, Take Me Home in 2012, Midnight Memories in 2013, Four in 2014, as a five-piece, and Made in the AM in 2015 following Malik's departure.
Liam Payne shares a child with former Girls Aloud member Cheryl Cole. Photo: TOLGA AKMEN
In 2016, Payne started making music as a solo artist and entered into a relationship with former Girls Aloud star Cheryl Cole. The pair share a child together who was born in 2017.
Between 2019 and 2022, he was in an on-again-off-again relationship with model Maya Henry. His most recent relationship was with influencer Kate Cassidy, whom he met in 2022.
Controversies
Payne appeared on Logan Paul's podcast 'Impaulsive' and made some controversial claims about former bandmate Zayn Malik. Photo: Screenshot / YouTube
In 2022, Payne appeared on Logan Paul's podcast 'Impaulsive' and drew ire from fans after claiming One Direction was created around him in 2010, and that he was always intended to be the frontman. He also said he wanted to fight Justin Bieber and took shots at his former bandmates' solo careers.
In another segment of the interview, which has been doing the rounds on TikTok, Payne bragged about an incident with one of his bandmates.
"There was an argument backstage and one member, in particular, threw me up a wall. So I said to him, 'If you don't remove those hands, there's a high likelihood you'll never use them again'".
Recording artist Liam Payne of music group One Direction performs onstage during 102.7 KIIS FM?s Jingle Ball 2015 Presented by Capital One at STAPLES CENTER on December 4, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Christopher Polk / Getty Images via AFP
Earlier this year, Payn's ex-fiance Maya Henry made a six-second TikTok, claiming the band member was Zayn Malik - though Malik has never publicly commented on the matter.
In October 2024, Henry also made a TikTok claiming Payne had been obsessively contacting her, her friends, and her mother, even after they'd broken up. She was reportedly in the process of taking legal action against the singer, with a spokesperson confirming to British tabloid The Sun that Henry had "issued a cease and desist" to Payne after "new and concerning information" came to light.
Health issues
Payne had openly discussed his struggles with mental health and addiction. In a 2021 episode of The Diary of a Ceo podcast, Payne said he'd experienced "severe" suicidal thoughts during his time in One Direction, and confessed to turning to alcohol again during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"There were a few pictures of me on a boat and I was all bloated out and I call it my pills-and-booze face. My face was 10 times bigger than it is now. The problem was, the best way to secure us was to lock us in our rooms, and what is in the room? A mini-bar. So I had a party-for-one that seemed to carry on for years. It was wild but the only way you could get frustration out ... I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be. Where's rock bottom for me? And you would never have seen it, I'm very good at hiding it. No one would ever have seen it."
Asked by host Steven Bartlett if the excessive substance abuse led him to suffer from suicidal thoughts, Payne responded: "Yeah. There is definitely some stuff that I have never, never spoken about. It was really, really, really severe."
In 2023, the musician was rushed to hospital with severe kidney pain while on holiday in Italy with Cassidy. He had been due to perform in Argentina last month but his South American tour was cancelled due to ongoing health problems.
What we know so far
Payne's final Snapchats were seemingly posted an hour before his death. Photo: Screenshot / Snapchat
Payne reportedly died after falling from the third floor of Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, about 5pm local time (9am on Thursday NZT). The singer was on vacation there with his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy.
The pair shared social media posts during their holiday, revealing they'd been sleeping in till 1pm, going horseriding, and enjoying the local cuisine. Timestamps on the most recent Snapchats show Payne had been posting just an hour before his untimely death.
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