He was the first to say goodbye.
Liam Payne, a beloved member of the band One Direction, passed away on October 16, 2024 at 31 years old. He died in Buenos Aires after falling from the third floor balcony of his hotel room. According to The New York Times, Payne “appeared to have excessively consumed drugs and alcohol” before his fall, was trashing his hotel room and behaving erratically. Recent evidence published by The Daily Mirror claims there is CCTV footage of Payne passing out and falling from the balcony, but it is widely debated if his death was accidental. This was a shocking loss for the One Direction community, as Payne had seemed to be in perfect health attending his former bandmate Niall Horan’s concert in Argentina days before this. Payne had previously struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, but according to his friends and close family, he had been sober for a while. Payne is survived by his parents, his two sisters and his son Bear.
I will forever remember what I was doing when my best friend, Ania Lichodziejewski, called me on the 16th. I was sitting in my room, just about to begin my homework when my phone rang. I picked it up and right away, she said, “I am not kidding, Liam Payne just died.”
I immediately did not believe her and quickly opened Google, where news stories had begun to flood in all with the same headlines: “Liam Payne, dead at 31”. I felt sick as I swiped out of Google to check Instagram to make sure he hadn’t posted saying, “It’s a hoax! I’m okay!” A few minutes later, I heard Lichodziejewski say, “TMZ just published pictures of the body, it has his tattoos, it’s him.” I was completely distraught for the rest of the day.
Lichodziejewski had been initially told about Payne’s death from a group chat and she too was initially skeptical. She was working on homework when her friends texted and immediately turned to the TMZ article announcing his death.
“I was immediately in shock and didn’t believe it,” she said.
Lichodziejewski said she has been a fan since she was younger but really got into them as a teenager. She said the reason the death of Payne affected her so much was because ,“it’s cheesy, but to me they mean childhood and community.”
After she confirmed that it wasn’t fake, she immediately called me and then went next door to our friend, Jojo Rickey’s, house to tell her. I also called Rickey to see her reaction. She was sitting in her living room after school and also immediately thought that we were lying. Rickey said, “I just sat in shock, like it wasn’t real.”
Rickey felt the same as Lichodziejewski, as she said, “It was really easy to connect with One Direction’s lyrics as a teenage girl..and there’s just such a large community all across the world.”
I think the main reason I personally was so upset was because of how One Direction had been such a big part of my life. I listened to them a bit when I was younger, but I really got into their music during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Just before the start of the pandemic, Ania had recommended I listen to Harry Styles’ new album Fine Line, and I loved it. I listen to One Direction everyday and that is not an exaggeration. I made a Spotify account just so I was able to listen to their music, and was in the top 0.01% of listeners on Spotify Wrapped the first year I had my account. I can still remember staying up with Ania on FaceTime all night before the 10th year anniversary of One Direction hoping that they would be announcing new music or a reunion tour.
This sadness is so strange because of its parasocial nature. I have sat and cried over a man that I have never met and never will. Parasocial relationships are so weird that way. I felt so connected to the band, as they were such a big part of my life, and this seems to be the sentiment found online as well, with one TikTok user saying “it feels like an old friend dying,” and another saying, “this is the weirdest form of grief I’ve ever felt… I feel like I just lost a part of my family.”
This whole situation has been so incredibly difficult for me in the weirdest way. Liam’s life had taken a difficult turn in the last few years of his life; from drug and alcohol addiction, to a tumultuous relationship with his ex fiancé, Maya Henry. The majority’s consensus online is to not erase what Henry has bravely brought to light, and to not blame her for his death, but to also remember who Payne was during his time in the band and to acknowledge the tragedy of the situation. Lichodziejewski agreed with this point saying, “We can still mourn him, but not excuse what he did.”
The only peace I can find in this tragic loss is the way the One Direction community— the Directioners— have come back together. The past few months, I haven’t been receiving as many TikTok videos on my ‘For You Page’ of One Direction, but after Liam’s death, there was a huge resurgence to the point I had to offload TikTok because it was making me so sad. According to Pubity, One Direction earned their biggest streaming day of all time on October 17th, 2024, earning a whopping 57.5 million streams. Being on TikTok and checking comment sections, I constantly see people checking in on how others are feeling, and reminding them that it’s okay to be sad even though you didn’t personally know Liam.
This togetherness has not only been in online communities; I have had family and friends—some who don’t even like One Direction and others I haven’t talked to in years—reaching out to check on me and see how I am. Ania was out wearing a One Direction shirt a day after he passed, and a woman came up to her and said, “I love your shirt, how are you holding up?” She said they talked for a while about how horrible the situation was and how bad it had gotten in the last few weeks with the amount of bullying he was facing online, as well as the horrible things being said about his ex fiancé.
Back in Argentina, at the hotel Payne passed away in, fans gathered to pay tribute and stood blocking paparazzi to stop them from taking photos of Payne’s father who had come to identify the body of his son. All over the world, tributes are being put up in remembrance of Payne, and fans gather there to grieve together. Lichodziejewski and I went to one in Lincoln Park and it was simultaneously so cool and so sad to see the way Payne had affected the lives of so many people, and to come to terms with the fact he didn’t know it when he died.
The release date of Liam Payne’s final song, “Do No Wrong” has been postponed out of respect for the family, but many Directioners wait eagerly to hear his last song with collaborator, Sam Pounds. Payne’s death was a tragic loss for those who knew him and those affected by his music. He was the first to say goodbye.
Liam Payne: August 29,1993-October 16, 2024 (31 years old)
