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Liam Payne, the British singer and former One Direction member, has died. Payne passed away today after falling from his balcony on the third floor of the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aries, ABC News reports. Payne was 31.
Liam Payne grew up working class in Wolverhampton. In school, he ran track, boxed, and acted in musicals. He first auditioned for The X Factor, the British reality show, at 14. The first audition was successful, but Payne was cut during the show’s boot camp stage. Two years later, he returned, and he was cut once again. This time, however, the judges put Payne into a group with four other promising young male singers, and that group became One Direction.
One Direction didn’t win their season of The X Factor, but Simon Cowell signed them to his Syco label anyway, and they became global phenomenon. After releasing their 2011 debut single “What Makes You Beautiful,” One Direction spent the next five years touring arenas around the world, recording lots of hits, and causing general hysteria. Payne, who often helped write the group’s songs, was never the most famous member of One Direction. But the lore around the group was deep, and all of them were swept up in it.
One Direction broke up in 2016, and all the members went solo. Under his Big Payno alter-ego, Liam Payne co-wrote and remixed some songs for former X Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Payne and Cole also dated for a while, and their son was born in 2017. Payne’s first solo single, the DJ Mustard-produced Quavo collab “Strip That Down,” was a top-10 hit in both the UK and the US. His 2019 solo debut LP1 featured songs with people like Rita Ora, J Balvin, French Montana, and Zedd. It went gold in the UK but didn’t sell terribly well in the US. At the time of his death, Payne was reportedly working on his second solo single, and he released the single “Teardrops” in March.
Payne struggled with alcoholism and prescription drug addiction for his entire adult life, and he claimed that he went to rehab and got sober last year. Payne also had lifelong kidney issues, and he postponed a Latin American tour last year after being hospitalized. Earlier this month, Payne went to see his former One Direction bandmate Niall Horan perform in Buenos Aries, and some fans complained that Payne was stealing Horan’s spotlight. According to TMZ, Payne was acting erratic recently, smashing his laptop in the hotel lobby and needing to be carried back to his room. It’s not yet clear whether Payne’s death was accidental or intentional.
Check out some of Liam Payne’s work below.