CNN
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Greater than an hour after sunset in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, a purple van backed as much as a facet door of the four-star CasaSur Palermo Lodge to take away the physique of former One Path band member Liam Payne from the premises.
Payne, 31, had died earlier within the day after falling from the third ground of the lodge, in accordance with a press release from Buenos Aires police. As followers began to collect outdoors of the lodge, constructing a vigil to the favored musician, the circumstances surrounding his loss of life have been nonetheless unclear.
Pablo Policicchio, the communications director for the Buenos Aires Safety Ministry, stated in a press release to The Associated Press that Payne “had jumped from the balcony of his room.” Police rushed to the lodge in response to an emergency name simply after 5 p.m. native time, he stated, warning of an “aggressive man who might be below the affect of medicine or alcohol.”
With hordes of onlookers and press assembled on the road outdoors the lodge, the fireplace division van was parked as near the exit door as potential, seemingly to forestall others from viewing the scene as responders labored. In loss of life, Payne was afforded privateness he was hardly ever given in life.
One Path was famously assembled by producer Simon Cowell after he noticed Payne and 4 different gifted younger males – Harry Kinds, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan – audition for UK’s model of “The X-Issue.” Individually, they weren’t ok, Cowell thought.
Collectively, it turned out, they have been a sensation.
Referred to as 1D by their followers, they turned a worldwide phenomenon as the primary group to have its first 4 albums debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Their large fanbase, nicknamed Directioners, propelled the pop group to greater than 50 million data offered earlier than the members parted methods to pursue solo careers. They have been identified for songs like “What Makes You Stunning,” “Greatest Tune Ever,” and “Story of My Life.”
Payne has spoken beforehand concerning the psychological weight of fame.
“I don’t assume I battle within the sense of what you’d naturally consider once I’m strolling down the road with each individual stopping me,” he instructed Esquire Middle East in 2019. “I imply, it occurs typically but it surely’s primarily mentally the place you battle with it. It’s the preparing and all the time understanding that you just is perhaps photographed.”
Malik was the primary to depart the band in 2015. The others adopted go well with.
CNN has reached out to Payne’s former bandmates and Cowell for remark. As of Thursday morning, none had made a public assertion.
Within the hours after information of his loss of life, fellow artists paid tribute to Payne, together with Charlie Puth and Zedd.
“I’m in shock proper now,” Puth wrote on his Instagram Story. “Liam was all the time so variety to me. He was one of many first main artists I started working with. I cannot consider he’s gone.”
Payne had shared undated footage from Argentina to his social media accounts in latest days. He was additionally seen attending his former bandmate Horan’s live performance in Buenos Aires on October 2, in accordance with videos posted on social media from the present.
Payne launched his first solo album in 2019 titled “LP1.” Final 12 months, he introduced plans for a brand new album and tour that have been later postponed after Payne suffered a kidney an infection.
He had been open about previous struggles with substance abuse and talked about being six months sober in a video shared on YouTube in the summertime of 2023.
“It’s good to be on this place,” he stated on the time. “I positively don’t want these issues anymore. The celebration’s over.”
Final spring, Payne launched the music “Teardrops.”
“I all the time assume in footage as a lot as I feel in sounds once I’m making music,” Payne stated in a video of him recording the music. “The emotions that these chords and various things give me, everybody of those songs is a narrative from my life.”