Liam Payne obituary: From X-Factor to One Direction and sobreity

He admitted his addiction continued during the Covid pandemic, but in 2023 he posted a YouTube video confirming he was almost six months sober after nearly 100 days in a US rehabilitation facility.

His journey to stardom began when he was just 14 in an unsuccessful known first audition for The X Factor. He reached the judges’ house stage and no further in 2008, but came back two years later as Simon Cowell had asked.

At 16, Payne initially auditioned as a solo act but was given a second chance to come back as part of a group, forming what would become one of the talent show’s biggest success stories – One Direction.

The band – composed of Payne, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson – rose to international fame despite only placing third in the show.

They became one of the biggest pop groups in the world with five albums, four world tours, one movie and a memorable music video for Red Nose Day in 2013 which featured then prime minister David Cameron happening upon them dancing in front of Number 10 Downing Street.

But six years after they were formed, with more than 20 million albums sold, the band were placed on indefinite hiatus with Malik having already left in 2015 to pursue a solo career.

In 2021, Payne talked about how he had “social anxiety” and “stress” from being famous, and discussed the pressure his mental health was under while not having the freedom to go anywhere as a One Direction member.

He said: “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 many years of my life.”

Payne said he became an “angry person” and felt success was a “sacrifice”, as well as speaking about his time attending recovery programme Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 2016, he signed a solo record deal with Capital Records UK and during his solo career he released Strip That Down and Get Low. Away from the studio and stage, he entered into a relationship with former Girls Aloud star Cheryl, the pair having first met on The X Factor when she was a judge.

Their son, Bear, was born in March 2017.

But in July 2018, Payne and Cheryl parted and he was later romantically linked to models Naomi Campbell and Maya Henry. A year later, he went through a mental health crisis, saying he was “quite lucky to be here still”.

In August 2020, he and Maya got engaged but parted during lockdown and announced the engagement had been broken off in June 2021.

At the same time, Payne was helping to provide more than 360,000 lockdown meals to people struggling as a result of the outbreak. He donated to the Trussell Trust charity to support more than 100 food bank centres in Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Coventry, Sheffield, Nottingham and Bristol.

Born in August 1993, Payne was frequently ill as a young child due to issues with one of his kidneys. In August last year, he postponed his scheduled tour of South America after suffering from a “serious kidney infection”.

He was most recently in a relationship with Kate Cassidy, and was announced as a judge on Netflix show Building The Band in August.