Liam Payne had everything he could have dreamed of when he was still a teenager. As a member of One Direction, there was a string of number one hits, fans (mostly women), millions in the bank and a lifestyle that involved traveling the world by private jet and performing to packed stadiums.
But he had made a pact with the devil and, as expected, he came out worse off.
Now, after his tragic death, it’s hard not to conclude that he was doomed from the moment he became a child star.
Liam was just 14 when he first auditioned for “. two years’.
Liam Payne first auditioned for the X Factor when he was just 14 and was told by judge Simon Cowell to return in two years.
And when he did, he was given a ticket to megastardom by being selected as one of five contestants to form One Direction.
Their managers then put them through a grueling regime of recording and touring that would have tested the endurance of much more experienced artists.
It was certainly too much for the sensitive boy from Wolverhampton who went from sharing a modest, loving home with his mother Karen, a nurse, his father Geoff, a fitter, and his two older sisters, Nicola and Ruth, to being catapulted to stardom. instant international. .
And after the band broke up in 2016, he endured several broken relationships. He was a victim of depression, anxiety and excessive dependence on alcohol and drugs.
Liam Payne with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy, who had been in Argentina with him until two days before the tragedy occurred.
How could it have come to this? How could the boy who was given the honor of singing the first lines of One Direction’s first hit in 2011, What Makes You Beautiful, end up dead just 13 years later?
Perhaps the answer is in the chorus of that song sung by Harry Styles: ‘You don’t know, oh-oh, you don’t know that you’re beautiful, oh-oh/That’s what makes you beautiful.’
Because the sweet and innocent teenager, unknowingly, signed a Faustian pact at just 16 years old that brought him adulation and riches, but cost him his sanity and, ultimately, his life. And he left Bear, his son with former Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Tweedy, orphaned at just seven years old.
In August, she uploaded a video to Instagram in which she said of her son: “Bless him.” It’s growing a lot now. He is a big boy and looks like a mini me. As if we needed more me in the world.
It sounded moving then, but now hopelessly tragic.
His decline surely had its roots in the pressure of instant fame. He took epilepsy medication as a mood stabilizer to deal with the “erratic highs and lows” that were part and parcel of being a member of the world’s most famous boy band.
Alcohol became his crutch. “Doing a show for thousands of people and then being stuck alone in a country where you can’t go out anywhere, what else are you going to do… but go to the minibar?” he once said.
Like so many tortured artists before him, Liam soon discovered that the only way to cope with the incredible adrenaline rush generated by playing to stadiums full of screaming fans was to self-medicate with class A drugs – the path to ruin and premature death. for so many stars.
After the band broke up, he revealed in numerous interviews how he became prone to depression and anxiety and how his mental health was further affected by setbacks such as the failure of his initially promising solo career and the split from his manager. .
So no one heard his cries for help when he said in 2015: “It was a point where every day you didn’t know if it was going to be the end.” It was so exciting at every show. Little by little he was losing his way.
Payne posted a photo of himself on his Instagram story hours before his death.
Of course, we’ve seen these types of slow-motion car accidents many times before. Amy Winehouse was only 27 years old when she died from alcohol poisoning. The same age as Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain when he shot himself just days after leaving a drug rehab center.
A friend told the Mail: “Liam had been struggling, he just wanted to be a good person.” He had the world at his feet, he worked very hard but he couldn’t overcome his pain.’
Perhaps Liam’s hospitalization last September in Italy with a mysterious serious illness should have been a wake-up call, especially after his previous pleas for help with his mental health.
His erratic behavior the afternoon before falling from the balcony of his hotel in Buenos Aires was another warning sign. Witnesses in the hotel lobby say he smashed his laptop and was so incapacitated by drugs or alcohol that “they had to carry him back to his room” and called the police.
When they returned that same night, it was to cordon off the inner courtyard of the hotel where his broken body lay.
Meanwhile, back in London, Simon Cowell responded to the news of Payne’s death by canceling filming on the final series of Britain’s Got Talent.