KENNEDY: Liam Payne’s death reminds me of all the tragic young stars I’ve known – and what drove them to an early grave

Liam Payne has been crying out for help for years.

Maybe no one could have saved him.

To the casual fan, it might have seemed like the handsome, young One Direction star had it all. He was a father known to friends as a cheerful, optimistic soul. As an ex-member of an iconic band, he had sold no fewer than 70 million records. Even rarer: he had also achieved success as a solo artist.

How could someone spiral so horribly out of control that he indulged in a reckless drug binge and was doomed?

A woman who stayed at the same Argentinian hotel where Liam died on Wednesday claims to have captured some of his last words.

She says he was acting erratically in the lobby, apparently going crazy, and after breaking his laptop, he told her, “I was in a boy band – that’s why I’m so confused.”

“I used to be…”

What a tragic confession. And so revealing.

When I heard about Liam’s death, memories of the people I knew from my days as an MTV video jockey in the ’90s flooded my mind.

I had seen a lot of guys go from smelly guitarists playing in bars to global sensations that made grown men cry. I thought of Kurt Cobain, Scott Weiland, Chester Bennington, Chris Cornell, Michael Jackson and, for me the sweetest of them all, Shannon Hoon.

Shannon, the lead singer of Blind Melon, was only a few years older than me when we met in 1993.

In our first interview, he found it hard to dismiss him once on air as Shannon ‘Who Cares’ after singing backup in the music video for Guns N’ Roses’ song ‘Don’t Cry’ .

Before Blind Melon’s “No Rain” (Remember the Bee Girl? Nothing more ’90s than that!) absolutely exploded, Shannon was a goofy, friendly, enthusiastic rocker.

I immediately connected with his mesmerizing Midwestern energy. I had lived in his hometown of Lafayette, Indiana, the birthplace of Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose (Rose and my brother went to the same preschool).

Shannon seemed familiar to me, like a big brother.

But with each subsequent encounter, his light dimmed. Within a year he had gone from a delighted sweetheart to a selfish lunatic.

I’d been around musicians long enough to see Shannon slip into a crevasse. The fame drove him crazy.

Imagine playing in front of 80,000 people who love you so much that they shout your songs back at you so loudly that you can’t even hear your own instruments.

What are you doing? Many meet as many girls as possible and keep the parties going as late as possible – night after night, year after year – and surround themselves with bags full of drugs to ensure the anger continues to rage.

Of course, that comes with a price.

In a 2021 interview, Liam Payne said his band managers would lock the One Direction kids in a hotel room for their safety after their unimaginable superstardom became too much.

‘Sure, what’s in the room? Minibar,” Payne recalled. ‘So at one point I thought, “Well, I’m going to have a party.”

Fame is lonely. The alcohol and drugs are disastrous. And then it all becomes impossible to live without it.

That’s what happened to Shannon. He died of a heart attack in 1995, alone and face down on a tour bus after a cocaine binge.

Like Liam, he left behind a child and an audience soured on his latest work.

It is now being reported that Liam’s label, Capitol Records, dropped him days before his death. His PR manager had resigned earlier this month. And his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, had left him alone in Argentina.

In the coming days and weeks we will learn the truth about Liam’s death and how and why he fell from that balcony to his death.

But I already know what killed Liam: fame.

Fat Uncle Sam

Elon Musk, who recently lost 30 pounds with the help of weight-loss injections, is threatening to put Uncle Sam on a diet.

Trump has said that if re-elected, he will appoint Elon as “secretary of cost savings.”

But Musk will soon find that there is no Ozempic cure for a bloated bureaucracy.

Just the sausage!

Why can’t mother-daughter duo Heidi Klum and Leni stop posing for near-nude photos together?

In their latest ad for lingerie brand Intimissimi, they are practically matched, with 51-year-old Heidi looking less like the once incomparable German crown jewel and more and more like a grubby Berlin pimp.

Little interest

What is Victoria’s secret? No one really cares.

After C-suite wokies plummeted sales by tying their panties to irritable blowhards like Megan Rapinoe and “body-positive” runway stompers with a BMI closer to Joe Biden’s age, they brought back the old-fashioned fashion show after a five-year break.

The problem: We’ve all moved on… and now buy our underwear at Target (but you can blame Biden!).

Needs a new Taylor

Isn’t Taylor Swift a billionaire? Can’t she afford to let her assistant bring a travel steamer on the private jet – and maybe some nicer shoes while they’re at it?

For someone who is such an artistic and cultural tour de force, she really drops the ball every time she opens her closet in search of any discernible sense of style.

Nice Veep

Whatever JD Vance is doing, it’s working.

He has denied using guyliner, but I don’t care if he goes all out on November 5th.

With his newly slim physique, dreamy blue eyes, wrinkle-free forehead and perma-tan, this couch-humper has become a real lady-killer!

Outside the Walz

Meanwhile, Tim Walz gives the most patronizing campaign pitch in American history.

After admitting that he was an ‘idiot’ when he misspoke about being in China when he wasn’t, he now appears to be telling us that he is a complete idiot.

“I don’t even know what a venture capitalist does!” he said this week, in what would be an insult to his MAGA counterpart.

Hey Tim, acting stupid doesn’t make you recognizable… or electable.