Remembering Liam Payne’s chaotic time in Australia: Singer enjoyed four much-talked-about visits Down Under and even considered moving there… before forgetting he had been to the country
Famous British singer Liam Payne has died aged 31 after falling from the balcony of his hotel in Argentina.
According to Argentine media, the British singer, best known as one-fifth of One Direction, fell from the balcony of his third-floor room at the Casa Sur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires.
Grieving fans have gathered outside the hotel and shared their shock and sadness as they lit candles in tribute to the singer, who shot to fame on The X Factor.
During the height of their boy band fame, One Direction visited Australia four times in a series of highly publicized visits and Payne even considered moving there.
One Direction β made up of Payne, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayne Malik β first visited Australia in 2012, when they notably attended the Logies.
They returned to the country again in 2013 and 2014, when they performed at the ARIA Awards, before returning for a final tour in 2015, months before the band went on hiatus in January 2016.
Payne last visited Australia in 2018 and at the time appeared to have forgotten his previous trips Down Under as he claimed he had never been there before.
The global pop star, who once said ‘geography was never my strongest subject’, made the remarkable comment after completing a solo performance at the Everest horse race in Sydney.
Famous British singer Liam Payne (pictured in Sydney in 2018) has died aged 31 after falling from the balcony of his hotel in Argentina
“I’m sorry the weather is so bad… I’ve never been to Australia,” he told fans.
Australia wasn’t the only country Payne forgot he was visiting, claiming in an online stream that he had never set foot in the Philippines despite performing in the capital Manila in 2015.
Following outrage from his fans, Payne later corrected himself: βWow, apologies to the Philippines, my geography was never my strongest subject. How could I forget beautiful Manila!!β
Reflecting on that blunder in 2019, Payne told the London Evening Standard: ‘My dad often jokes that I’ve been all over the world and I don’t know what the f*** somewhere looks like.’
Payne’s last Australian performance was solo In 2018 the Everest Carnival, but previously he has appeared on stage Down Under several times with One Direction.
However, the band’s visits to Australia were not without controversy, making headlines at the time for their comments about the famous local wildlife.
Payne and his band One Direction visited Australia four times in a series of highly publicized visits and Payne even considered moving there (he is pictured in Sydney in 2018)
Payne first made an awkward comment in 2012 when he visited a Brisbane sanctuary, claiming to be “really scared” while holding a koala for fear it would get chlamydia.
‘This is worrying. I would never have picked the thing up if I’d known,” he told The Sun at the time.
He made headlines again in 2013, during the Adelaide leg of the band’s Take Me Home tour, when Payne spotted a stream of fans standing outside the band’s hotel.
He sent out a tweet warning them to stay away from the grass, which he described as a “snake habitat.”
βIt’s not worth anyone getting hurt,β he wrote.
When fans failed to move out of the way, the frustrated singer sent a follow-up tweet: “Aren’t you reading what I’m saying, it’s a SNAKE HABITAT REVERSAL.”
He had already met with his Australian fans during the same tour after some fans shockingly broke into the band’s luxury oceanfront property.
During their Sydney leg of the tour, a group of fans went too far by breaking into the premises and making off with a pair of Payne’s underwear.
A witness told the Daily Telegraph at the time that she saw six girls and an eight-year-old boy jump over a door to enter Payne’s Palm Beach apartment.
‘It’s Calvin Klein underwear. They only took the underwear. They wanted to bring a wetsuit, but someone bought it inside,β she said.
One Direction’s Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson arrive at the 2012 Logie Awards in Melbourne
Asked about his craziest fan experiences on Fitzy and Wippa’s NOVA radio show in 2014, Liam revealed the trip was “the worst to Australia” as he mentioned the burglary.
The British-born star said the experience changed his view of the country, where he once considered buying a permanent home.
βI always had Australia in mind as a place I would want to move to if things got too crazy,β he told hosts Ryan Fitzgerald and Michael βWippaβ Wipfli.
“But when we first came to Australia, I didn’t expect it to be this crazy.”
βI really love Australia, I love the atmosphere of it, so relaxed, I really like it, but it’s just too crazy for us there right now,β he added.
Payne’s rise to fame first began in 2008 with an ‘extraordinary’ X-Factor audition that circulated on social media after his tragic death.
Payne last visited Australia in 2018 for the Royal Randwick Races (pictured) and appeared to have forgotten his previous trips Down Under as he claimed he had never been there before
Fans flocked in YouTube to see a 14-year-old Payne audition for the British talent show.
After failing to win the competition, he was told to come back two years later, returning to the reality TV show at the age of 16.
He was then placed into a band with fellow contestants Styles, Malik, Horan and Tomlinson in what would become One Direction, one of the most successful boy bands in music history.
The band rose to fame in 2010 and captured the hearts of thousands of adoring teenage fans, selling more than 70 million records worldwide.