Liam Payne’s harrowing drug history in his own words

One Direction star Liam Payne’s body was found in a courtyard after he fell from a third floor balcony of a Buenos Aires hotel

Liam Payne spoke about his history of substance abuse in a telling interview long before his tragic death at the age of 31.

The former One Direction singer and dad-of-one fell from a third floor balcony in a Buenos Aires hotel last night, just days after he was filmed attending a concert of his old bandmate Niall Horan.

Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett in 2022, he said: “I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be. 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.”

Asked if he ever had “moments of suicidal ideation”, Liam replied: “Yeah. There is definitely some stuff I have never spoken about to do with it. It was really, really severe.

“There were a few pictures of me on a boat and I was all bloated out and I call it my pills-and-booze face. My face was 10 times bigger than it is now. The problem was, the best way to secure us was to lock us in our rooms, and what is in the room? A mini-bar. So I had a party-for-one that seemed to carry on for years. It was wild but the only way you could get frustration out.”

Then, in July 2023, Liam was admitted to rehab for 100 days in a Louisiana clinic after he hit “rock bottom”. During his stay at the centre, he focused on art and poetry and had very little contact with the outside world.

Addressing his fans in a video, he admitted: “Turning the phone back on was a little bit scary. I’ve been trying to learn to get to know this new guy…” He also spoke about the controversial comments he made on YouTube star Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast, apologising for how he spoke about his former bandmates. He explained at the time: “I took shots at everybody else… came across as really big headed. I want to apologise for that…that’s definitely not me.”

Liam also revealed that his One Direction pals “really stood by” him during the difficult period of his life. He said: “There is a point when you hit rock bottom and you realise you have got to do something different as whatever you are doing right now isn’t working for you. I was in bad shape up until that point.”

It has been reported that the father-of-one had been acting ‘erratically’ in the hours before his death. The hotel workers reported “an aggressive man who may have been under the effects of drugs and alcohol”. According to local media reports, Liam had been seen ‘acting erratically in the hotel lobby and smashed his laptop’ before he ‘had to be carried back to his room’.

Tragically, shortly after the call, workers said they heard a loud sound in the courtyard. Liam’s body was discovered shortly after 5pm.