Former One Direction member Liam Payne has died after falling off a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, TMZ reports. Payne was 31 years old.
Hailing from Wolverhampton, West Midlands in England, Payne first got involved with entertainment as a member of the Pink Productions Theatre Company at the age of 12. He first auditioned for The X Factor in 2008, and, despite moving past the first round with a performance of Frank Sinatra’s ‘Fly Me to the Moon’, was subsequently cut at the Boot Camp stage. Judge Simon Cowell advised him to “come back in two years,” and after auditioning again in 2010, Payne was put into a group with four other boys – Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik – that would become One Direction, one of the best-selling boy bands in music history.
After signing with Cowell’s Syco imprint in 2010, One Direction became a global sensation and released their first studio album, Up All Night, the following November. Their subsequent albums Take Me Home (2012), Midnight Memories (2013), and Four (2014) all debuted atop the Billboard 200, making them the only group to have their first four albums end up at number one. Made in the A.M., the group’s last album before going on an indefinite hiatus, came out in 2015.
Payne began working as a producer under the monikers Big Payno or Payno, co-writing and remixing several tracks including Cheryl Cole’s ‘I Don’t Care’. In 2016, he signed with Republic Records and released his first solo album, LP1, in 2019. The record featured collaborations with Quavo, Rita Ora, J Balvin, French Montana, and Zedd. At the time of his death, Payne was reportedly working on his second studio album, and he released a single called ‘Teardrops’ in March.
Payne is survived by his son, Bear Grey Payne, who was born in 2017.