One Direction’s Liam Payne falls to death at Argentina hotel
Payne suffered “very serious injuries incompatible with life as a result of his fall,” emergency medical services said.
Singer Louis Tomlinson, who rose to fame as a member of British boyband One Direction (1D), says it was “really, really impossibly difficult” for him to deal with the death of fellow band member Liam Payne. “I’ve never lost a friend before,” the singer told Rolling Stone in an interview.
Payne died on October 17 last year after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires. He was 31 years old. Fellow band members Tomlinson, Niall Horan, Harry Styles and Zayn Malik shared heartfelt tributes to the singer, whom they called their brother.
Talking about 1D’s 15-year anniversary in July, Tomlinson said, “It was really uncomfortable, actually, the 15th anniversary, because the [collective] feeling to celebrate is as important, if not more important than ever, on behalf of Liam.” The singer said he had previously felt “sick of nostalgia” at these anniversaries, but felt different this year.
Payne, Tomlinson said, was the “safest pair of hands” in the group, owing to his experience prior to joining 1D. Payne and Tomlinson were 18 and 16 respectively when the group appeared on the show X-Factor in 2010, leading to a hugely successful five-year run. Payne had been on X-Factor twice before they took to the stage together, the singer recalled.
“None of us would have admitted it at the time, because you have a lot of pride as a young lad, but we all looked up to him like that,” Tomlinson told the interviewer.
He said Payne was “a very misunderstood person” from a public perspective, adding, “He was someone who just wanted to be liked”. Addressing negative sentiments Payne had expressed regarding his time in 1D, Tomlinson said, “It was never through malice, it was only through miscommunication — him just not being able to express himself in the way he needed to.”
Tomlinson will be releasing his third album, How Did I Get Here?, on January 23. He told Rolling Stone he hoped the album would would reflect his increased confidence as a solo performer and would strike a sunnier tone than the “mildly dark sonic place” of his last album, Faith in the Future.
He is also co-starring in a Netflix docu-series with former bandmate Malik — the pair will be travelling across America to reconnect following Malik’s departure from 1D and the group’s subsequent breakup.