Remembering Liam Payne

How Did Liam Payne Die?

According to local police, Liam Payne (31) died after falling from a third-story balcony in his hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Wednesday, October 16. Payne was in South America to attend a concert by Irish singer Niall Horan, a fellow bandmate in the famous former English boy band One Direction, who was touring Latin America.

Police in Buenos Aires said that they found Payne’s body after responding to a call to emergency services from staff at the CasaSur Palermo hotel in the city’s Palermo neighborhood. Reports indicate Liam had been staying there for several days.

According to CNN’s Argentine affiliate Todo Noticias, staff at the CasaSur Palermo earlier had requested urgent police assistance. The manager informed the operator “we’re a little afraid that he’ll do something” because his room had a balcony.

“We have a guest who is overwhelmed with drugs and alcohol,” the hotel manager said on the call to get police assistance. “He breaks things up. He is tearing the whole room apart.”

Prosecutors in Argentina said that two women had been with the former One Direction star before the incident, but left the room several hours before police were called and before his tragic fall.

The communications director for the Buenos Aires Security Ministry, Pablo Policchio, said in a prepared statement to the Associated Press that Liam, “had jumped from the balcony of his room.”

Liam Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy left Argentina two days before his death to go back to her Miami, Florida home. Liam Payne's son Bear is seven years old.

All About Liam Payne

Liam Payne was born on August 29, 1993 in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England to infant nurse Karen Payne and fitter Geoff Payne and was the youngest sibling in the Payne family behind his two older sisters Nicola and Ruth.

Liam was born three weeks premature and suffered many illnesses early on in his life, including a scarred and dysfunctional kidney. He had regular tests done on him until he was four, and he got 16 shots into his arm every morning and another 16 every night.

Sports came into his life and helped Liam evolve mentally and physically as he thrived as a cross-country runner. Liam joined the Wolverhampton & Bilston Athletics Club and he was ranked in the top three runners in his age group in the 1500m.

How Did Liam Payne Get Discovered?

Payne was also into music, and as a young teenager, he tried out for The X-Factor at age 14, singing Frank Sinatra’s iconic “Fly Me To The Moon” in his audition.

But Simon Cowell didn’t think Liam was ready just yet, so he spent the next two years improving his craft.

“I should really be concentrating on my [school] work, but I just think about singing too much,” Liam said before that life-changing The X-Factor audition in 2008.

So a young Liam Payne came onto the music scene in 2008, when the then 14-year-old first appeared on The X Factor in the UK. but it was two years later in 2010 when he returned for a second audition with all four judges voting “yes” to put him though after his performance of “Cry Me A River.”

When and How Was One Direction Created?

During that 2010 season of The X-Factor, Liam failed to move on in the “Boys” category on the show, so judge Nicole Scherzinger suggested he was better suited for the “Groups” category.

In The X-Factor’s boot camp part of the competition, Liam was teamed up with Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson to create the boyband One Direction to perform at Wembley Stadium in London.

Although the group didn’t win the show’s “Groups” competition—they finished third—Cowell saw enough to sign One Direction to his Syco Entertainment label in 2011.

The group’s debut single was “What Makes You Beautiful,” and suddenly a star boy band was born. Liam said his major influences as a musician growing up were Usher, Chris Brown, Justin Timberlake, and Pharrell Williams.

"The person who has inspired me most is Pharrell Williams who I worked with a while back. I got talking to his producer recently and asked him what Pharrell was like when he was younger, and he said to me that when he was my age he couldn't press a note on a keyboard,” Liam revealed.

One Direction became one of the top-selling boy bands in history and sold over 70 million records worldwide. In 2016, the group announced an “indefinite hiatus” with all five members of the group pursuing solo careers. Any potential Liam Payne One Direction reunion in the future was severely hampered by this untimely death.

One Direction Discography

• Up All Night (2011)

• Take Me Home (2012)

• Midnight Memories (2013)

• Four (2014)

• Made In The A.M. (2015)

Liam Payne as a Solo Artist

After the One Direction announcement in 2016, Liam signed with Republic Records and embarked on a solo career in 2017. His debut single as a solo artist, ”Strip That Down,” went platinum in the UK and the US, reaching No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 10 on the US Billboard Top 100.

Liam’s lone studio album, titled LP1, came out in December of 2019. In the first three years of his career as a solo musician, he sold more than 18 million singles, and 2.4 million albums, and Liam Payne 2024 racked up over 3.9 billion streams.

LP1 peaked in the charts at No. 17 in the UK, No. 50 in Australia, No. 70 in Canada, No. 111 in the US, and at No. 124 in Japan.

Payne also made remixes under the stage names “Payno” and “Big Payne” and performed songs with other groups including his singer Cheryl (Cole), former wife of English soccer player Ashley Cole. Liam and Cheryl were partners from 2016 to 2018 and Liam also had a relationship with Maya Henry from 2019 to 2022.

Were There Any Signs That Liam Payne Was Struggling?

There were definitely signs in recent years that Liam was struggling with some inner demons. In an interview with Ant Middleton and British broadcaster Sky News in 2019, Liam said, “For some certain circumstances—I’m quite lucky to be here still, which is something I’ve never really shared with anyone.”

He also alluded to constant struggles with “loneliness.” "Every so often, you’re like, 'When will this end?' That’s almost nearly killed me a couple of times,” he commented also adding that he had actually considered killing himself.

Liam admitted that he often drank before getting on stage for shows in a desperate effort to manage the stress. In a 2019 interview with Men’s Health Australia, Liam said. “When you’re doing hundreds and hundreds of [concerts] and it’s the same 22 songs at the same time every single day, even if you’re not happy, you’ve got to go out there.”

"We are heartbroken. Liam will forever live in our hearts and we'll remember him for his kind, funny, and brave soul, Payne’s family said in a statement.