Liam Payne Spoke Openly About His Mental Health Before His Death at 31. Here's What He Said

Liam Payne spoke at length about his struggles with mental health and addiction before his death on October 16 at the age of 31.

Policía Federal Argentina confirmed to PEOPLE that the singer died after falling from a balcony at the CasaSur Palermo hotel in Buenos Aires. The incident is still under investigation, and it has not yet been determined whether his death was an accident or suicide.

The former One Direction singer previously explained that he used alcohol to cope with One Direction’s huge success, saying Men’s health Australia that “it’s hard when you have the level of fame that we had in the band.”

“There were a lot of people with mental health issues who didn’t really get the help they needed, and I think that’s a bit of a problem in our industry,” he told the news outlet in 2019. “It’s the same with— it happens to everybody , it’s been going on since the ’70s. You know what the pitfalls are and if you’re lucky enough, like me, to get out of that scenario and get back to a sense of normalcy, then you know it’s a little bit different.”

Liam Payne in November 2016.

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He compared going on stage to being an actor at Walt Disney World, saying it was like “putting on a Disney costume.”

“I was [drunk] a lot of time because there was no other way to figure out what was going on,” he said. “I mean, it was fun. We had an absolute blast, but there were certain parts where it just got a little toxic.”

In the 2021 episode Director’s diary podcast, Payne said he experienced suicidal thoughts during his time in One Direction.

“I was worried about how far my bottom would be,” he said. “Where’s the bottom for me? And you’d never see it. I hide it very well. No one would ever see it… There are some things that I definitely never, ever talked about. It was real, real, real that was the problem and it wasn’t until I saw myself after that that I said, ‘Right, I have to fix myself.’ ”

In July 2023, Payne announced that he was celebrating six months of sobriety, telling fans in a YouTube video that he would spend nearly 100 days in a rehab facility in Louisiana.

“I just feel like I have more control over life and everything that was getting away from me. I just feel like I have more control over it,” he said. “I just needed to take some time for myself, really, because I kind of became someone I didn’t really recognize anymore. And I’m sure you didn’t either. I was in a bad way up until that point and I was really happy that I kind of stopped life and work.”

The star said he enjoyed being offline because it helped him focus on his recovery. However, it wasn’t until he attended a Hans Zimmer concert in January 2023 that he had the a-ha moment that prompted him to quit drinking.

From left: Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Harry Styles of One Direction in 2012.

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“I was watching this beautiful symphony and I was having a drink and I was like, ‘You know what? This isn’t really serving me at all. I really don’t need this right now,'” Payne recalled. “This is the first time I’ve left a drink and gone to someone else, ‘You finish this, I don’t need this right now.’ And I haven’t taken one since, and it’s been almost six months, which I’m excited about.”

“It’s good. It’s good to be in this position,” he added. “I definitely don’t need that stuff anymore. The fun is over.”

In addition to Payne, the band, which consisted of Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson, rose to fame after competing in The X factor In 2010, Malik left in 2015, and the group later announced an indefinite hiatus.

“Obviously, there were also deep problems within our friendship. We were together every day for five years and we got sick from each other,” said 31-year-old Malik Call me dadAlex Cooper in 2023.

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“We were close. We did crazy things with each other that no one else in the world will ever understand or have the experiences we shared with each other,” Malik said, “and now I look back on it in There were great experiences with them, but, yes, we just passed our course.

A year before that, Styles, 30, told Zane Lowe: “There’s a lot of respect between all of us if we’ve done something together. And that’s something you can’t really undo. And you know, I think it’s like a very deep love for each other.”

Liam Payne October 2019

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In 2023, Payne gave an interview with Logan Paul in June 2022 in which he spoke critically of his former bandmates, while also revealing that he had spent 100 days in rehab.

“My own frustrations with my own career and where I kind of ended up, I took a shot at everybody else, which is wrong,” Payne said in the eight-minute YouTube video. “So obviously I want to apologize for that because it’s definitely not me.”

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In May 2024, Payne’s ex-fiancée Maya Henry spoke exclusively to PEOPLE about her romance Looking aheadwhich was created during her relationship with the singer.

Although she admitted that much of the book is fiction, she told PEOPLE, “When you love someone so much, you have those rose-colored glasses. You’re in denial, so you think these things are going to stop, and they’re not, and it just becomes a problem among other problems.”

Payne leaves behind son Bear Grey, 7, with ex-singer Cheryl.

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