Liam Payne, arguably the least famous member of the most famous boyband of the 21st century, died on October 16th at 31. He fell off the balcony of his third-floor hotel room, while in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The sadness in his passing is not lost on me. It is, entirely, a tragedy. Liam, who had gone on countless podcasts and radio shows talking about his struggles both in One Direction and after their breakup, once said to Stephen Bartlett on the Diary of the CEO podcast in 2021 that he could “I don’t even know if I have hit it [rock bottom] yet. I can either make that choice now and pick my last moment as my rock bottom or I can make a whole new low.”
However, Payne has become the subject of heaping tonnes of online scrutiny in recent years, for reasons that vary as much in severity as they do in subject. From general moments of cringe-worthy post-fame behaviour (see: the entirety of the “Strip That Down” era) to public struggles with drugs and alcohol, to serious abuse allegations from former romantic partners. Most recently, his ex-partner Maya Henry has been vocal about the physical and emotional abuse she suffered at the hand of Payne, garnering loads of attention online.
I, like many other young girls in the 2010s, loved One Direction. I don’t remember necessarily caring about Liam Payne more than the other four, but he was an integral part of the band that shaped my childhood and the childhoods of millions around the world. His fame and its circumstances are unreplicable; in an era of extreme oversaturation and social media, it is hard to imagine a time where One Direction became as famous as they did. And now, like many other former One Direction fans, I am realising that their time is truly over, and nothing can ever bring it back.
There seems to be a collective mourning for Liam Payne that extends beyond what may have been appropriate for a figure as controversial as himself, and those mourning are grappling with how to memorialise him.
The result is that Payne is not the most important figure in his own remembrance. The internet is mourning Liam Payne in a self-centred way, with most mourning the passage of time, the way things change for the worse, and those that we looked up to who disappointed us, and by proxy, the souring of childhood by the loss of it. Liam Payne is the first of his generation of superstars to pass in a sudden, tragic manner, closing the book decisively on the era he was at the helm of.
As a result of his sudden passing, former fans are forced to mourn who he was, and simultaneously hold space for who he became, and for Maya Henry and the others he hurt. Reconciling, in just a few hours, that the boy they obsessed over in 2010 became a man that they were upset with and scared of in 2024, and that he will never, ever, be anything again.
It’s okay to grieve the fact that someone you loved as a kid turned out to be harmful, and that they died. And it’s okay to grieve that they ran out of time to be brought to justice or to atone for their actions. There’s not a protocol for how to grieve someone like Liam Payne.
The whole thing is just so, so, sad. Sad for Maya Henry, who will almost certainly be unfairly blamed for his final spiral out of control. Sad for his family, who saw fame give their son the world, and then take it away. Liam Payne will never again have to see another tweet about his buccal fat removal, but he also will never have to face consequences for the horrors he put his romantic partners through.
As the dust settles, I think that Liam Payne will end up as another canary in the coal mine that is massive fame that the next generation of young singers and actors and dancers will ignore as they run headfirst towards their dream.
“Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson Glasgow” by Fiona McKinlay is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.