Everything Liam Payne said about his mental health and addiction struggles

Kate Ng
·Trending Lifestyle Reporter
Updated ·5-min read
Liam Payne, who has died at the age of 31, was outspoken about his mental health and struggles with fame and addiction. (Getty Images)
Liam Payne, who has died at the age of 31, was outspoken about his mental health and struggles with fame and addiction. (Getty Images)

Content warning: mentions suicide.

Liam Payne has died at the age of 31, prompting an outpouring of grief from fans at the shocking news.

The former One Direction star fell from the balcony of a hotel room he was staying in in Buenos Aires on Wednesday night.

Celebrity friends have been paying tribute to Payne, including former X Factor contestants Katie Waissel and Rebecca Ferguson, who both appeared in the show the same year as Payne in 2010.

Payne, who shared a son named Bear with singer Cheryl, spoke openly about his struggles with mental health, as well as alcohol addiction throughout his career.

Having shot to fame at just 16 years old when he became one of the original members of One Direction, Payne also spoke about how life in the public eye affected his wellbeing.

Liam Payne said he started drinking to cope with the exponential rise to fame that One Direction experienced. (Getty Images)
Liam Payne said he started drinking to cope with the exponential rise to fame that One Direction experienced. (Getty Images)

Speaking to Men’s Health Australia in 2019, Payne said he began drinking alcohol to cope with fame.

He described getting "p***ed quite a lot of the time" before going on stage to perform as akin to "putting the Disney costume on".

"There was no other way to get your head around what was going on," he said.

In 2021, he reflected further on how much he struggled with drinking during the COVID pandemic. In an appearance on Steven Bartlett’s podcast Diary of a CEO, Payne said: "It was just getting earlier and earlier. Easier and easier to go to.

"What I’ve found more than anything with the alcohol and stuff is boundaries. There were no boundaries. So, if you’re on Zoom, you quite easily hide that you might be a little bit tipsy at the point you shouldn’t be."

Last year, Payne revealed to fans that he had been diagnosed with "a couple of conditions", although he did not name them.

In an Instagram Story, he said: "Not to go into too much detail, but one of them that I have, basically, there are a lot of manic things in my life which you guys saw.

"But, the other side of it, that kind of feels like when I would lose my sobriety, in these moments that I was super low."

Liam Payne attends the premiere of 'One Direction: This Is Us' at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City.
Liam Payne said drinking became 'easier and easier' during the COVID pandemic. (Alamy)

He went on to add that he was talking about it on his social media to help others feel less alone. "I just wanted to put this out here anyway, because I know there are probably a few people who have the same thing, maybe you don’t even know it sometimes.

"But, just so you know, you’re not the only one."

Elsewhere in his interview on Diary of a CEO, Payne spoke of hitting "rock bottom" during the darkest periods of his life.

"I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be," he told Bartlett. "Where’s rock bottom for me? And you would have never seen it. I’m very good at hiding it. No-one would ever have seen it.

"There is some stuff that I have definitely never, never spoken about. It was really, really, really severe. And it was a problem. It was only until I saw myself after that, I was like, ‘Right, I need to fix myself’."

In a YouTube video he shared last year, Payne said: "There is a point when you hit rock bottom and you realise you have got to do something different as whatever you’re doing right now isn’t working for you. I was in bad shape up until that point."

He also thanked Cheryl and their son Bear for "giving me a little bit of freedom to go and get well". "There is no point trying to be a dad when you have nothing to teach," he added.

Cheryl and Liam Payne attends the BRIT Awards 2018 at the 02 Arena, London, UK. 21/02/2018 Credit Photo ©Karwai Tang For more information, please contact: Karwai Tang 07950 192531 karwai@karwaitang.com
Liam Payne and Cheryl share a son named Bear, who is seven years old. (Getty Images)

In 2019, Payne revealed that he experienced suicide thoughts and that he was "lucky to be here still". He starred in Sky TV programme Ant Middleton and Liam Payne: Straight Talking.

He told the former UK Special Forces soldier: "For some certain circumstances - I’m quite lucky to be here still, which is something I’ve never really shared with anyone.

"I can’t go too deep into it because I don’t know how I feel myself. I still haven’t made my peace with it, to be honest."

Payne continued: "There’s times where that level of loneliness and people getting into you everyday. Just every so often, you’re like, when will this end? That’s almost nearly killed me a couple of times."

<p>One Direction released their first single, What Makes You Beautiful on 12 September 2011. (Getty Images)</p>
One Direction's rise to fame resulted in mental health issues for Liam Payne. (Getty Images)

Payne said that One Direction’s meteoric rise to fame led him to develop "a bit of agoraphobia", which is an anxiety disorder that causes an intense fear of becoming overwhelmed or unable to escape.

He told Esquire Middle East in 2019: "I would never leave the house and I do sometimes suffer with it a bit in the sense that I’ll get days where I just don’t want to leave my house."

Payne said that, when he did have to be out in public, he would be "sweating buckets in the car thinking, ‘I don’t want to do this’".

"Unfortunately, it does happen to everybody in this industry," he added. "I think you just have to get over it as quickly as you can."

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.

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