Liam Payne’s death has One Direction fans feeling guilty | Neely Karimi
I can’t say I’ve thought about Liam much recently, and maybe that’s part of the problem, writes Neely Karimi.
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I can’t say I’ve thought about Liam much recently, and maybe that’s part of the problem.
To me, Liam Payne lived in the past when Simon Cowell first formed the group on X Factor in the UK back in 2010.
A time when the five baby-faced pop stars would feature in countless articles that Teen Vogue, The Sun, The Mirror and more and it was those countless articles that I would devour.
When you’re a 13-years-old girl and a band like One Direction comes into your life, it’s as if your brain completely re-circuits.
It’s easy to laugh or cringe at how young girls obsess over pop stars – the Taylor Swift Eras Tour mania is a perfect example – but when it’s you doing the fangirling it doesn’t feel mindless or foolish, it’s such a serious habit upheld by a paradoxically intimate love for people you have never met.
I memorised facts about those boys’ lives, saved photos and gushed endlessly to my friends. Even now in a deep crevice in my brain, those facts probably still live on among the likes of math solutions from year 7 and my MSN Messenger password.
Then like most people I then grew up, had other favourite bands and other parasocial relationships.
I had, like plenty of other now grown-up women of my age, kind of forgotten about Liam – until today.
The announcement of his death on Thursday morning was filled with shock, a little bit of disbelief but mainly a bit of guilt about how you can love someone so much when you’re young and they are at the height of fame – and then suddenly, you simply just forget and move on – but do they?
Once the ostensible lead of the band turned hanger-on to fading fame, Liam Payne was undoubtedly a complex person who more and more featured in headlines that weren’t complimentary.
While his peers went on to have successful solo careers in music (we’re looking at you Harry Styles), Liam was kind of left behind. In 2022, Liam was on the Logan Paul podcast and boasted how he was the reason One Direction was formed.
He had simply never moved on.
Most recently he was in the news for the legal action he was facing from ex Maya Henry.
The 23-year-old model had issued a cease and desist letter to Payne, now 31, on the basis that he had been ceaselessly contacting her.
In May she released a book called Looking Forward – which is inspired by her relationship with Payne.
She details a traumatic abortion experience in it as well as many other challenging moments in their three-year romance.
Liam Payne’s dying in a cloud of controversy is a savage reminder that the stars who seem so perfect in every way, especially in the lens of teenhood, are simply human with their own flaws and their own demons.
When I heard the news of his death this morning, I felt sad, not only for how his life had seemed to blow up around him but for the young me.
The girl who would fight her siblings for time on the computer to watch YouTube compilations of One Direction.
The one who now feels guilty at the ease in which we adore these stars, but then simply forget and move on to the next big thing.
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