Liam Payne, former One Direction member, dies after hotel balcony fall

By Dan Heching, Manuela Castro, Mauricio Torres, Alli Rosenbloom and Christian Edwards, CNN

(CNN) — Liam Payne, a former member of the boyband One Direction, has died after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, according to local police. Payne, who was 31, leaves behind his seven-year-old son, Bear.

Police said they discovered Payne’s body after emergency services responded to a call from staff at a hotel where the pop star was staying in the city’s trendy Palermo neighborhood.

Payne rocketed to global stardom as part of One Direction, the massively popular boyband that was created on the British version of the X Factor in 2010. The group, which included members Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik, announced an “indefinite hiatus” in 2016.

Staff at the hotel had requested urgent police assistance shortly before Payne’s death Wednesday, according to an emergency call obtained by CNN’s Argentine affiliate Todo Noticias.

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

The manager told the call operator that because Payne’s room had a balcony, “we’re a little afraid that he’ll do something.”

Earlier this month, the pop star was seen in Argentina attending his former bandmate Horan’s concert.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Payne as well as his former One Direction bandmates for comment.

A meteoric rise

Payne first dazzled British audiences as a bright–eyed 14-year-old during his audition for The X Factor in 2008, singing Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon.”

“I should really be concentrating on my [school] work, but I just think about singing too much,” he said before his first audition. Payne, who grew up in Wolverhampton, a city in the English midlands near Birmingham, spoke then with a thick “Brummie” accent that would fade as his career progressed.

Judge Simon Cowell later cut Payne before that series’ live performances, telling him to focus on his studies and “come back in two years.”

In 2010, Payne, then 16, returned for his second audition. Later in the series, judge Nicole Scherzinger grouped Payne together with Styles, Tomlinson, Horan and Malik to form One Direction. The group came third in the competition and signed with Cowell’s record label, embarking on their first tour the following year that sold out in many of the 54 global venues.

One Direction remains one of the best-selling boy bands of all time, selling more than 70 million records worldwide.

All five former members pursued solo careers following the band’s 2016 “indefinite hiatus.”

‘It got toxic’

The fame took a personal toll on Payne, who spoke openly about his struggles with substance abuse and his mental health.

“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,” Payne told Men’s Health Australia in 2019. He said he often drank before going on stage in an effort to manage the stress.

“It’s almost like putting the Disney costume on before you step up on stage and underneath the Disney costume I was pissed [drunk] quite a lot of the time because there was no other way to get your head around what was going on,” he said. “I mean, it was fun. We had an absolute blast, but there were certain parts of it where it just got a little bit toxic.”

In another 2019 interview with British broadcaster Sky News, Payne said he felt “quite lucky to be here still, which is something I’ve never really shared with anyone.”

Payne released his debut solo album “LP1” in 2019 and said in 2023 that he was working on his second album. In March of that year, he released the single “Teardrops,” a song he said was “born from many tears. Some are mine. Others are not.”

In the summer of 2023, Payne said he was marking six months of sobriety after completing treatment in a US facility. Payne’s tour was set to kick off in South America in September of that year, but he had to postpone the scheduled dates after suffering a kidney infection.

Tributes pour in

Payne’s tragic death has left fans and the music industry reeling, with celebrity tributes pouring in from all corners of the world. The news was splashed across most UK newspapers’ front pages Thursday morning.

In a post on Instagram, Harry Styles’ mom, Anne Twist, posted an image of a broken heart emoji, captioned “Just a boy.”

In another Instagram tribute, former X Factor presenter Dermot O’Leary said: “I remember him as a 14 year old turning up to audition on The X Factor, and blowing us away singing Sinatra. He just loved to sing. He was always a joy, had time for everyone, polite, grateful, and was always humble.”

A vigil has also been held outside the hotel in Buenos Aires.

Yamila Zacarias, a 25-year-old fan, said One Direction “meant a lot to me because I was at a stage [in my life] where I wanted to form part of something bigger, and One Direction and being a Directioner was that for me.”

Behind her, mourning fans lit candles and sang the One Direction song “Infinity.”

Payne is survived by his son Bear, whom he had with former Girls Aloud member Cheryl Tweedy. Tweedy is an former X Factor judge who was present for both of Payne’s X Factor auditions. The couple confirmed they had split in 2018 but continued to co-parent.

In a video shared on YouTube in 2023, Payne talked about the love and affection he felt for Bear.

“He’s awesome. He’s growing up far too quickly,” Payne shared at the time. “He’s far more smart than I think I’ll ever be. He’s a wonder.”

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This story has been updated.