Liam Payne Death: Former One Direction Member Found Dead in Buenos Aires, Argentina

CNN
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Liam Payne, a former member of the boy band One Direction, has died after falling from the window of a hotel in Buenos Aires, according to police there. He was 31.

According to a police statement to CNN, Payne's death occurred Wednesday at a hotel on Costa Rica Street in the Palermo neighborhood.

Buenos Aires police said officers from police station 14B went to the hotel Wednesday afternoon after receiving a 911 call about an aggressive man who may have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The police statement did not identify that person as Payne.

Payne was spotted at his former bandmate Niall Horan's concert in Argentina on October 2, according to videos posted to social media by the show.

According to videos posted on his Snapchat, he had recently celebrated his 31st birthday in the UK. Payne was born in Wolverhampton, West Midlands and is the youngest of three children. He is a graduate of City of Wolverhampton College, where he studied music technology.

Payne is best known as a member of the famous British boy band One Direction. The band, which also included Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Horan, formed in 2010 after each member appeared on the British version of reality competition show The X Factor.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Payne and his former One Direction bandmates for comment.

“I love being on stage,” Payne said in a 2015 interview with Entertainment Weekly about performing and songwriting with the group. He said he was most proud of co-writing her song “What a Feeling.”

“That was a big thing that me and Louis sat together and wrote,” Payne remembers. “It just kind of fit. It was inspired by a Fleetwood Mac sound. It’s just a nice traffic jam – imagine driving along the coast.”

One Direction announced in 2015 that they were going on hiatus. Payne later released his debut solo album titled “LP1” in 2019. In May 2023, Payne announced that he was working on a new album, which he was “very excited about”, and shared that he was planning a tour.

He has been open about previous struggles with substance abuse and talked about completing treatment and being sober for six months in the summer of 2023.

The tour was scheduled to begin in South America in September of that year, but Payne had to postpone the planned dates due to a kidney infection.

In March of this year, Payne released the song “Teardrops.”

Payne had a son born in 2017, whom he shared with former Girls Aloud singing group member Cheryl Cole.

In a video shared on YouTube in 2023, Payne spoke about the love and affection he felt for his son Bear.

“He's great. “He’s growing up way too fast,” Payne shared at the time. “He’s far smarter than I think I’ll ever be. He’s a miracle.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.