Liam Payne Shares Message on Kindness in Resurfaced 2013 Interview

Over a decade before his death at 31, Liam Payne talked about why he thinks that the members of One Direction were so humble in an interview with E! News in 2013.

Liam Payne knew that kindness really makes someone beautiful.

Over a decade before his death at 31, the former One Direction member shared some of the ways he and fellow band members Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik were able to stay humble despite their overwhelming popularity.

According to Liam—who died on Oct. 16 following a fall from the third floor of a hotel in Argentina—they maintained their compassion by embracing humor first.

“We just take each day as it comes,” Liam told E! News in 2013. “The thing about us is we’re not taking it too seriously. We’re just here to have a bit of a laugh, and then whatever else comes with it is great.”

The “Night Changes” singer felt that mentality helped keep the members of One Direction humble, especially when they were busy with world tours and their 2013 documentary One Direction: This Is Us.

“All of these different things that happen for us, like the film and doing the tours and stuff,” he continued, “are just things that have just happened. It’s not anything that we’ve kind of reached for in a way.”

And while Liam would go on to have a solo career after the group disbanded in 2016, at the time he couldn’t imagine not performing with Harry, Niall, Louis and Zayn.

“It kinda scares me a little bit to be honest with you,” he told E! about the idea of going solo. “I like having the comfort of the other lads on stage.”

As he noted, “There’s always someone to chat to.”

However, in the years since One Direction went on an indefinite hiatus, Liam—who shares 7-year-old son Bear Grey Payne with his ex Cheryl Cole—got candid about how difficult that time had been for him, causing him to struggle with drugs and alcohol.

“I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be,” he said on The Diary of a CEO podcast in 2021. “Where’s rock bottom for me? And you would never have seen it. I’m very good at hiding it. No one would ever have seen it.”

Liam added that his mental health issues became “really, really, really severe.”

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“It was a problem,” he continued. “And it was only until I saw myself after that, I was like ‘Right, I need to fix myself.'”

He later completed a 100-day stint at a Louisiana rehab center in 2023, explaining in a YouTube video at the time that he “needed to take a little bit of time out for myself actually because I kind of became somebody who I didn’t really recognize anymore.”

“I just think I took it out on everybody else,” Liam said, “which is just wrong really, and my own frustrations with my own career and where I kind of landed, so obviously I want to apologize for that.”

To see more from Liam’s life through the years, keep reading.