Liam Payne, the British singer who rocketed to international fame as a teenager as one-fifth of the boy band One Direction, has died after falling from a hotel room in Argentina, according to reports.
Police in Buenos Aires confirmed to CNN in a statement that Payne had fallen from the third floor of a hotel in the city’s Palermo neighborhood. Citing local media, Reuters reported that Payne was found in an interior patio at the hotel.
Payne, along with Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, and Niall Horan, formed One Direction in 2010 after the boys appeared separately on the UK’s The X Factor. The boy band was a sensation and spawned several hits before disbanding in 2015 to focus on solo projects.
Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, and Louis Tomlinson of One Direction on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on November 26, 2013 in New York City.Kevin Mazur
Payne continued to release music, most notably a single “Strip That Down” in 2017. That same year, he welcomed a son, Bear, with his then-girlfriend, British pop star Cheryl Cole.
Liam Payne told Glamour UK in a 2021 interview that raising his son with Cole was “fantastic.”
