England’s best-selling pop singer Robbie Williams is mourning the loss of Liam Payne and has shared a touching tribute to the late singer on social media.
In an Instagram post on Friday, October 18, two days after Payne’s death, Williams recalled his first meetings with One Direction as their mentor on The X factor.
“I met the guys at The X factor and ‘mentored’ them. I use the word mentored in inverted brackets because I haven’t done anything to be honest. I was just hanging out with them. They were all sassy and lovely. I was enjoying the carefree piss and thinking about all the times I was that cheeky pisser with the Popstars that came before me when I was in Take That.”
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Payne, who has been open about his alcoholism, announced in 2023 that he had completed rehab. “I just needed to take some time for myself because I’ve become someone I don’t really recognize anymore. And I’m sure you’re not either,” he said in a YouTube video titled “I’m Back…”
However, before going to rehab, Williams offered Payne some advice. In an Instagram photo shared by the former Take That singer, their last email exchange from 2022 is represented in handwriting. Williams’ initial email has not been released, but Payne’s response is: “Thanks man you mean it. I’m nervous as hell about it but I won’t give up [.] You have my word. Wish me luck.”
Williams’ public struggles with addiction and mental illness ultimately led to tensions that resulted in his first departure from Take That in 1996. He returned to the band in 2010 after reconciling with his bandmates, though he would leave again in 2011 to focus on his solo career.
Liam Payne at the Royal Albert Hall in London in December 2022.
Karwai Tang/WireImage
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I still had my demons at 31, Williams wrote. “I relapsed. I hurt. I hurt because I came back. I hurt for a lot of painful reasons. I remember Heath Ledger passing and thinking “I’m next”. By the grace of God and/or dumb luck I’m still here.”
Williams also asked people to extend grace to celebrities. “We don’t know what’s going on in people’s lives. What kind of pain they’re going through and what makes them behave the way they do,” the “Angels” singer wrote. “Even if you think celebrities or their families don’t exist. They fucking do. Bone and bone and immensely sensitive.”
Payne has been open about his struggles with mental health and sobriety, speaking out Men’s health Australia 2019 used alcohol to cope with One Direction’s success,
“It’s hard when you have the level of fame that we had in the band,” he said at the time. “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. “It’s the same s— that’s been happening to everybody, that’s been happening since the ’70s.”
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.”
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Girls Aloud member Cheryl, who has son Bear Grey, 7, with Payne, wrote a similar statement on Instagram in memory of her ex-boyfriend.
“As I try to get over this devastating event and process my own grief at this incredibly painful time, I would like to remind everyone that we have lost a human being,” she wrote. “Liam was not just a pop star and celebrity, he was a son, brother, uncle, dear friend and father to our 7-year-old son. A son who now has to face the reality that he will never see his father again.”
Payne died on October 16 at the age of 31 after falling from the third floor balcony of his hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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Source: HIS Education