Liam Payne has died aged 31.
The former One Direction star passed away on Wednesday (October 16), after falling from his hotel balcony in Buenos Aires. The singer fell from his room on the fourth floor of the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in the Argentine capital.
Witnesses have told TMZ that the tragic incident occurred just after 5pm local time, and that it came after the pop star was seen behaving erratically in the lobby of the hotel earlier in the day.
Liam – who joined One Direction as a teenager, after auditioning on the UK version of The X Factor — reportedly smashed his laptop in the lobby, before he was carried back to his hotel room.
The singer attended one of Niall Horan‘s concerts in Argentina in recent weeks, and the former bandmates actually reunited during the show.
Liam enjoyed huge success as part of One Direction – but he previously admitted to struggling with drink and drugs, acknowledging that his lifestyle became a “cause for concern” at one point in time.
The “Strip That Down” hitmaker – who starred in the band alongside Niall, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik – told the BBC: “When I was younger, I went straight in on the whisky. I tend to pick my poison early, then I stick with it until it bores me.”
Liam confessed to suffering some “very dark years,” despite his fame and success.
The singer, who had a son called Bear with his ex-partner, pop star Cheryl Cole shared, “There were a couple of very dark years of me going through extreme peril with different mental health things.”
