Liam Payne revealed details about his One Direction fame in comments that resurfaced following his tragic death at the age of 31.
The singer died instantly from injuries, including a skull fracture, when he fell from a third-floor balcony at the Casa Sur Hotel in Argentina on Wednesday.
Buenos Aires emergency services chief Alberto Crescenti said Liam suffered a “cranial fracture and extremely serious injuries that led to his immediate death.”
Following the devastating news of his death, fans have returned to past videos and interviews with the beloved pop star.
Now comments Liam made about his global fame and how he tried to be One Direction’s ‘good boy’ have resurfaced.
In a 2015 interview with the Herald SunLiam said he was the ‘chilled’ member of One Direction compared to his bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik.
Just weeks before the band’s split in January 2016, Liam said he had gone a “little bit crazy” after trying to maintain the “good boy” image since rising to fame.
“I was a bit more relaxed then and now I’m not, I went a bit crazy,” he told the publication at the time.
Liam Payne (pictured in March) revealed details about his One Direction fame in comments that resurfaced following his tragic death at the age of 31
‘I tried to be the good boy when I was a boy, that’s how people saw me. Not so much now.’
Liam confessed that his carefree attitude had gotten him and his bandmate Louis into some tough situations, as he was the one who talked them out of the situation.
“And that puts me and Louis in a lot of tough situations, which I was always trying to get us out of.” Now I say ‘f**k it,'” he added.
Liam rose to fame at the age of 16 on The X Factor, when he was in a boy band with Harry, Niall, Zayn and Louis in what would become One Direction, one of the most successful boy bands in music history.
The band rose to worldwide fame in 2010 and captured the hearts of thousands of adoring teenage fans, selling more than 70 million records worldwide.
Liam has been very candid about how his global fame with One Direction changed his life and affected his relationship with drugs and alcohol.
In conversation with Stephen Bartlett on the Diary of the CEO Podcast in 2021, he shared, “I was afraid of how far my rock bottom would be. Where is the low point for me? And you would never have seen it. I’m very good at hiding it.
‘I don’t even know if I’ve hit him yet. I can make that choice now and choose my last moment as my low point, or I can reach a whole new low point.”
Following his death, comments Liam (pictured in 2010) made about his global fame and how he tried to be One Direction’s ‘good boy’ have resurfaced.
In 2015, Liam said he tried to be the ‘chilled’ member of One Direction compared to his bandmates Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik (L-R in 2010)
He admitted that he had suffered from ‘social anxiety’ for years due to being famous, and discussed the strain on his mental health while not having the freedom to go anywhere as a boy band member.
Liam also talked about his journey to sobriety, and how his drinking started when global mania for the boyband meant they were often stuck in hotel rooms, where alcohol was readily available.
‘It feels to me like when we were still in the band. The best way to keep us safe was to lock us in our rooms, and what’s in the room? A minibar,” he continued.
“So I had a party for one that seemed to last many years of my life, and then you look back at how long you’ve been drinking? And Jesus Christ, that’s a long time, even for someone as young as me.”
In multiple interviews, Liam said he had turned to alcohol to cope with both One Direction’s massive success and subsequent split, telling Men’s Health Australia in 2019 that “it’s hard when you have the level of fame that we had in the band’ .
Years later, he explained how it was when he attended a Hans Zimmer concert in January 2023 that he was inspired to quit drinking.
He said: ‘I was watching this beautiful symphony, I was having a drink and I thought, ‘You know what? This actually doesn’t serve me at all. I don’t really need this right now.”
“It’s the first time I’ve ever put down a drink and said to someone else, ‘Finish this, I don’t need this right now.’ And I haven’t picked one up since, which has been almost six months, and I’m excited about that.”
‘It’s okay. It’s good to be in this position,” he added. ‘I definitely don’t need those things anymore. The party’s over.’
The singer died instantly from injuries, including a skull fracture, when he fell from a hotel balcony at the Casa Sur Hotel in Argentina on Wednesday. In the photo: one of his last selfies
Following his pledge to continue his sobriety, fans feared for the singer’s health following a series of worrying signs, including an erratic red carpet appearance, hospitalization due to a kidney infection and canceled performances.
Liam posted his last message on social media in May, posting a photo of One Direction with American filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who died on May 23, and thanking him for directing the 1D This Is Us documentary.
It comes as:
Liam reportedly fell from a hotel balcony in Buenos, Argentina around 5 p.m. on Wednesday (ART).
Liam had arrived in Argentina earlier this month for his ex-bandmate Niall Horan’s concert with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy, who left two days ago while he stayed put.
A crowd of emotional fans have since gathered to pay their respects to the pop star outside the hotel.
Police in Buenos Aires said they initially responded to a 911 call “of an aggressive male who was possibly under the influence of drugs and alcohol.”
Officials heard a loud noise in the courtyard before discovering his body just after 5 p.m., the BBC reported.
According to TMZ, Liam had “behaved erratically in the hotel lobby and destroyed his laptop” before having to be “carried back to his room.”
Police had received a call from a hotel employee requesting urgent assistance for a drunken guest, according to audio material on the case obtained from Buenos Aires’ Ministry of Security.
Liam had arrived in Argentina earlier this month for his ex-bandmate Niall Horan’s (both pictured) concert with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy, who left two days ago while he stayed
“If he’s conscious, he’ll destroy the whole room and we’ll have to send someone,” the worker said.
City ambulance spokesman Alberto Crescenti said Liam had fallen about 40 meters and suffered “serious injuries incompatible with life.”
He said: ‘At 5.04pm local time the alarm was raised due to a person lying on an internal patio of Casa Sur.
‘At 5.11pm an ambulance arrived and the man was pronounced dead.
‘Afterwards we found out that he had been a famous singer. Unfortunately, the injuries he sustained as a result of the fall proved fatal. There was no way to resuscitate him.”
His body was taken to a local mortuary where post-mortem examination was carried out.