The chaos, conspiracy theories, and controversy surrounding Liam Payne’s death

Liam Payne died Wednesday in Buenos Aires, leaving fans around the globe mourning the former One Direction singer — and grappling with chaos, conspiracy theories, and controversy in the wake of the 31-year-old’s death.

Argentine police confirmed that Payne, who came to Buenos Aires two weeks ago to attend a concert by his former bandmate Niall Horan, had died after falling from the third story of his hotel. The BBC obtained the transcript of two 911 calls that were made from the hotel with concerns for Payne’s safety shortly before his death. Authorities later clarified that Payne died as a result of injuries from the fall. 

In a joint statement posted to Instagram, the former members of One Direction — Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik — said that they were “completely devastated” by “the loss of our brother, who we loved dearly. The memories we shared with him will be treasured forever.”

As a member of the massively popular UK boy band, Payne achieved a very rare level of global fame, but faced addiction struggles that he spoke about publicly following the band’s breakup. His last single, “Teardrops,” released in March, left fans speculating about his mental health. Just days before his death, Payne had received a cease-and-desist order from his ex-fianceé Maya Henry.

The premature death of any public figure is a collectively mourned tragedy, but when a large and devoted fandom faces this kind of loss, the ripple effects can be intense. Often, fans in this situation are met with what psychologists term disenfranchised loss — when there’s a lack of community support system for this grief because the “loss” of a celebrity or an intense parasocial relationship isn’t one that society tends to recognize as real or legitimate. 

In such a context, fans look online for other fans to share their experience with, which can lead to plenty of confusion and chaos. The circumstances of Payne’s death contributed to the spread of misinformation about what happened, as did coverage by tabloid media. 

Who is Liam Payne, and how did he become famous? 

Payne initially auditioned for the fifth season of The X Factor in 2008 with a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon.” He was just 14. (Girls Aloud member Cheryl Cole, with whom he would go on to share a child, served as one of the judges at the time.) Payne was dismissed and brought back to the show twice before being cut by executive producer and judge Simon Cowell. However, Cowell encouraged him to come back in a couple of years. 

At 16, Payne tried out again for the competition’s seventh season in 2010 where his Michael Bublé-inspired cover of “Cry Me a River” earned him a standing ovation from Cowell. He failed to advance as a solo act but received a fateful second chance when guest judge Nicole Scherzinger suggested that he and his future bandmates — Styles, Horan, Malik, and Tomlinson — compete as a boy band under Cowell’s mentorship. One Direction made it all the way to the finals before coming in third. 

Throughout their time on the show, the group accumulated a fervent international following on social media, especially Tumblr. Soon after the competition, they signed with Cowell’s Syco Entertainment and released their single “What Makes You Beautiful” from the album Up All Night in 2011. The album was notably successful in the United States, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. They became the first UK group to top the US charts with a debut album, marking a new British invasion.

Throughout their time as a band, One Direction released five albums — their final record excluding Malik, who exited the group in 2015 — and two concert films, One Direction: This Is Us and One Direction: Where We Are. In 2015, they released their final album, Made In The A.M., before each remaining member embarked on a solo career. 

What’s been happening since 1D’s split? 

A year after One Direction’s final album, Payne released his solo single, “Strip That Down” featuring Quavo, from his first and only album LP1. The R&B-tinged track was fairly successful, peaking at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 on the UK Singles charts. However, LP1 received largely negative reviews. 

Payne’s solo career and celebrity were met with less buzz than his bandmates, notably Styles. He largely garnered headlines for his relationships and personal life. In 2016, he started dating Cheryl Cole and had a son, Bear, with the singer in 2017 before they split a year later. In 2021, he opened up about the “severe” addiction issues he dealt with during his boyband days on The Diary of a CEO podcast. The singer revealed that he took a lot of “pills and booze” and experienced suicidal ideation.

“The day the band ended, I was like, ‘Thank the Lord,’” he said on the podcast. “I know a lot of people are going to be mad at me for saying that, but I needed to stop, or it would kill me.”

The following year, he sat down for an interview with YouTuber Logan Paul on his podcast Impaulsive which prompted his less-than-favorable reputation among One Direction fans in his final years. On the podcast, Payne made some questionable claims about his role in the band, stating that the idea for One Direction started with him and that his first solo single “outsold” the rest of the group’s debuts. He also discussed negative interactions with his ex-bandmates and discord within the group.

What happened on the day of Liam Payne’s death?

On October 16, Payne had been in Argentina for two weeks, in part to attend a Niall Horan concert. Roughly an hour after posting photos and videos with his girlfriend, influencer Katie Cassidy, on his Snapchat, posts claiming that Payne had fallen from his hotel balcony began to circulate on X. TMZ confirmed his death with partially cropped photos of Payne’s dead body, which they later removed. 

In a statement to the Associated Press, Buenos Aires police said that Payne fell from the third floor of the Casa Sur Hotel in the Palermo neighborhood of Argentina’s capital at 5:07 pm local time, resulting in extremely serious injuries. Police also found medication in his room. 

The next day, Buenos Aires police shared a preliminary autopsy that pointed out “craniocerebral injuries were sufficient to cause death” as well as “internal and external hemorrhages in the skull, thorax, abdomen and limbs.”

How did the media respond? 

When the news first broke, many on social media refused to believe it, in part because Payne had continued to update his accounts throughout the day until shortly before his death. That changed abruptly when TMZ published a photograph of Payne, ostensibly under the guise of identifying him and “confirm[ing] early reports from witnesses.” The outlet quickly unpublished the photo due to public backlash, but retained a description of Payne’s body at the scene.  

The treatment of the situation by TMZ was the beginning of a flood of sensationalized reporting surrounding Payne’s death. Readers of outlets ranging from tabloids to CNN quickly learned about the damage done to Payne’s hotel room, the 911 caller who reported that Payne was allegedly “trashing the room” and had taken “too many drugs and alcohol,” and the legal battles with ex-fiancée Maya Henry that reportedly “overwhelmed” Payne prior to his death. The tabloids also fed speculation about Payne’s mental health, referencing his past mention of suicidal thoughts and circulating reports of his “erratic” behavior in the lead-up to the incident. 

Platforms like X were rife with misinformation, most notably unsourced videos and photos falsely purporting to be of Payne either falling or having fallen to his death, all of which were subsequently debunked. 

What was the controversy with his ex-fiancée?

Weeks before his death, Payne received criticism from One Direction fans online for displaying so-called attention-seeking behavior at Horan’s Bueno Aires show on October 2. On Snapchat, he said he announced that he was attending the show and had some things to “square up” with Horan. In videos, Payne can be seen eagerly engaging and taking photos with fans seated outside of his suite. After the show, Payne was spotted posing for more fans outside. After the concert, Payne posted a photo of himself and Horan, stating that he was “so proud” of his former bandmate.    

Amid that discussion, clips of Payne’s comments from his interview with Paul began to recirculate on TikTok and X, as well as other ridiculed interactions he had on social media. He was also still dealing with criticism from fans that he was a controlling partner after a TikTok his current girlfriend Cassidy posted in August where Payne quips that she looks “nice and covered up for once.” 

On October 14, his ex-fiancée Maya Henry — to whom he was engaged from 2020 to 2022 — made some troubling allegations on The Internet Is Dead podcast about her relationship with Payne, which she called “toxic.” In the most chilling moments of the interview, she accused him of “play[ing] with death” and threatening suicide as a “manipulation tactic.” She said she and her family offered to get him help in a rehab facility, which he ignored. She also stated that she sent him a cease-and-desist letter after he allegedly wouldn’t stop contacting her through her iCloud accounts. 

She also claimed that Payne’s family had warned her against releasing her first novel, Looking Forward, this past May, which she says was “inspired by true events.” Given the book’s subject matter — a woman’s traumatizing experience with a famous man — fans speculated that it was based on her relationship with Payne. In the book, the main protagonist Mallory is coerced by her partner into receiving a painful at-home abortion. Mallory is then discouraged by her partner’s team from seeking medical treatment for hemorrhaging for fear of being spotted in public. 

How has the industry reacted?

In the wake of Payne’s death, social media was flooded with entertainment industry tributes from Payne’s colleagues and friends, everyone from the Backstreet Boys to Paris Hilton. Dermot O’Leary, the host of X Factor, the British reality competition show where One Direction was famously created in 2010, posted to Instagram that Payne’s death was “the worst news.”

“I remember him as a 14 year old turning up to audition on The X Factor, and blowing us away singing Sinatra. He just loved to sing.”

Payne’s neighbors and close friends recounted moments of kindness and compassion, including the time he reportedly saved the life of a friend in a fire. “I’m devastated,” Rita Ora, who previously collaborated with Payne on the Fifty Shades Freed soundtrack, wrote on Instagram. “He had the kindest soul, I will never forget. I loved working with him so much — he was just such a joy to be around on and off stage.”

Several relatives of Payne’s former bandmates reacted publicly, including Harry Styles’ mother, who shared a broken heart emoji on Instagram. The band itself issued a joint statement via Instagram.

Additionally, former band member Louis Tomlinson updated Instagram with a lengthy tribute to Payne, saying he was “devastated to be writing this but yesterday I lost a brother.”

In a statement, Payne’s family described themselves as “heartbroken” by the loss. “Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul,” the family stated.

“We are supporting each other the best we can as a family and ask for privacy and space at this awful time.”

How have fans reacted? 

Because the early reports of an out-of-control man endangering himself were so out of sync with the upbeat, calm social media videos uploaded to his feed from earlier in the day, many fans initially refused to believe he’d died. People magazine reported that the videos shared on Payne’s feed the day of his death had actually been created four days earlier.

Still, it was enough to jump-start a wave of wild speculation, including the false conspiracy theory that his death was somehow connected to the ongoing criminal case against Sean “Diddy” Combs. Internet trolls also flooded the hotel where he died with ironic and mocking reviews, while others reportedly turned to harassing Henry, flooding her Instagram comments following his death.

Many of Payne’s fans, however, were left simply reeling from the shock. Local fans turned the location of Payne’s hotel into an impromptu memorial site after his death, leaving candles, flowers, and other tributes in his memory and singing his songs. 

“I’ve always loved One Direction since I was little,” one of the fans gathered there told the Associated Press. “To see that he died and that there will never be another reunion of the boys is unbelievable.”

Another fan told CNN that she’d been unable to see the group on their Argentine tour stop. Her visit to Payne’s memorial site, she noted, was “the only time I was able to clap for him.”