Liam Payne was destined to be a star…he had looks, charisma & talent but was one of the nice guys, says Clemmie Moodie

“I SHOULD be concentrating on my schoolwork but I just think about singing too much,” said a floppy-haired Liam Payne in his Wolverhampton accent.

“It’s a dream, and I’d love to do it,” he added in his first X Factor audition in 2008.

That young boy’s dream became a reality — with global interest.

Within 2½ years he’d quit school and was an international superstar, a fifth of Britain’s most manufactured boyband, One Direction.

Right from the off, Liam had all the ingredients to be a star: the looks, charisma, talent and, above all else, kindness. He genuinely was one of the nice guys.

I first met Liam when he was 16. I was a venerable 27.

It was a Saturday night backstage at the Fountain Studios in Wembley where Liam was cheekily marauding around the friends and family area alongside bandmates, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik.

None had any idea what lay in store. No one possibly could have.

Except, perhaps, for their all- seeing, then all-powerful puppetmaster, Simon Cowell.

“Clemmie, if I were a betting man, I’d put a LOT of money on One Direction to win this thing,” he told me over a beer in his dressing room.

Off I trotted — telling my parents to do the same, and my boss who immediately went down to Ladbrokes and splurged £500 on 1D to win the X Factor.

They came third. I lost £200 as did my poor folks. But, it turned out, 1D were the real winners.

They went on to sell 75 million records, scoop nearly 200 awards including seven Brits, six Billboard Music Awards and became multi-multi-millionaires.

Collectively, they have earned more than The Beatles.

There was an indefinable buzz about the lads in those early days.

Liam was always one of the friendliest and most approachable.

While the others mucked around, he would rein them in — politely answering my inane questions, and keeping the interviews on track.

He was streetwise beyond his years. On a dark, gloomy day in January 2011, 1D came into my former Canary Wharf offices — a stone’s throw from a penthouse flat Liam would later buy — for the first playback of their debut single, What Makes You Beautiful.

After giving the lads a tour of the newspaper office — where Liam leapt behind my phone and pretended to make a “celebrity call” — we went to a soundproof room where they popped on their record.

For 3½ minutes we sat around a CD player, bobbing along slightly awkwardly, listening to this slice of pop perfection.

Clemmie, if I were a betting man, I’d put a LOT of money on One Direction to win this thing

Simon Cowell

At this stage, press attention was new to Liam and co — and they seemed to be relishing every second. Not once did they begrudge an interview, or not play the game.

There was fun to be had, and they had it.

The following year I saw them again at the Brits, their first.

They were thrilled to be there, and endearingly excitable. Liam drinking tap water. With a history of kidney problems he said he couldn’t really process alcohol.

And he was happily mingling with the great and good of British music. A family boy, he had sweetly brought along some relatives.

His uncle sought me out, saying: “I just want to say thank you so much for supporting Liam.

“You were the first journalist to champion the boys and get behind them, and we will never forget it.”

It’s rare to be thanked in this industry. And it’s clear Liam’s family were supremely proud of their smart, talented, loyal boy.

He had a happy childhood growing up in Wolverhampton with parents Geoff and Karen, a fitter at an aerospace firm and a nurse, and his older sisters, Ruth and Nicola.

He excelled at sport, ranking third in the country in the 1500m.

And after first applying to the X Factor aged 14, he was told by Simon to go back to school. He duly did, and picked up 11 GCSEs.

Of all the band Liam was the sensible one, the “boring” one.

To have lost his life in these most awful, most grim, circumstances seems so utterly baffling.

Somewhere along the line, poor Liam lost himself. Fame has a lot to answer for. “I still feel like a child in so many ways,” he said a few years ago.

“There is no link between money and happiness. It is a myth. Money is the ability to relax on certain things.”

With a team of “yes men” around him, Liam was shielded from reality and his problems, which he battled in private, spiralled.

With a team of ‘yes men’ around him, Liam was shielded from reality and his problems, which he battled in private, spiralled

Clemmie Moodie

He fought them bravely. Ultimately they beat him.

But in those glorious early days, Liam had a lust for life.

He was a proper superstar yet never cocky. I once went to New York with the group, ahead of their first Madison Square Garden gig.

By now, the end of 2012, the cracks were showing.

Liam, though — casually taking his T-shirt off in their poky dressing room backstage to change — looked like a competition winner.

He couldn’t have seemed happier, or more grateful to be given this opportunity to crack the States — a feat Take That, Blue, Oasis and Westlife will all testify is easier said than done.

But he admitted that the hours were long, the demands increasing by the week. By 2015, the sheen of boyband life had been lost. Liam was knackered. They all were.

He said: “There are a lot of people who get paid a lot for doing not much at all — like socialites on reality shows, or people who earn a million pounds a day working a couple of hours buying and selling shares.

“But what we earn we earn for doing an awful lot. We are constantly working.” And they were.

Sadly their nine-year hiatus, after Zayn had earlier quit in 2015, has showed no signs of abating.

It is beyond tragic that now it never will.