WATCH – STORY OF HIS LIFE –
June 8, 2021 – Payne catapulted to fame at age 16 in “One Direction” alongside Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik in 2010 when the group competed on “The X Factor,” after unsuccessfully competing as solo artists. The group, one of the best-selling boy bands of all time, went on hiatus in 2015.
“The day the band ended, I was like, ‘Thank the Lord,’” Payne said. “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.” Payne said he struggled with alcoholism at the peak of the band’s success, when he spent a lot of time traveling during four world tours.
“In the band … the best way to secure us, because of how big we’d got, was just to lock us in our rooms. What’s in the room? A mini-bar,” he said. “So at a certain point I thought, I’m just going to have a party-for-one and that seemed to carry on for many years of my life. Then you look back at how long you’ve been drinking and you’re like, ‘Jesus Christ, that’s a long time.’”
