By Meg Watson
Jade Scott, a 21-year-old from Western Sydney, was watching a TikTok about former One Direction member Liam Payne when she learned of his death.
“It’s such a shock,” she said. “I was a massive 1D fan and I remember going to the concert when they performed with 5 Seconds of Summer when I was a kid. It’s like, geez … they’re actually never going to perform together again.
“For my generation, this is probably the biggest shock death that I’ve experienced.”
Liam Payne performing at Sydney’s Everest horse race event in 2018. Credit: WireImage
Scott is one of millions of fans mourning Payne’s death, reflecting on his work and his complicated legacy.
The 31-year-old singer was found dead outside his hotel in the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires, on Thursday morning (Australian time), having fallen from the third-floor balcony. The exact details of the incident are not known. He leaves behind a seven-year-old son, Bear.
Payne had been in the headlines recently, allegedly facing legal action from his ex-fiancee Maya Henry, who claimed he was obsessively contacting her.
One Direction performing in Melbourne in 2012. Credit: Getty Images
She recently claimed he “weaponised” his fan base against her for “speaking the truth”, drawing on negative parts of their relationship.
Payne has been offside with much of the 1D fan base for years, for what many perceived as arrogance and a lack of respect for other band members (he later retracted some comments blaming frustrations with his own career).
In fact, the TikTok that Scott was watching was a negative one, suggesting Payne had tried to steal the spotlight with fans at Niall Horan’s recent concert (a bandmate he said he had not spoken to in some time).
“He’s been a bit of an oddball. He’s done some questionable things, supposedly … But if someone becomes even the slightest bit problematic, people are very quick to hop on the bandwagon of hate, which kind of sucks,” Scott said.
Dr Georgia Carroll, who has been a 1D superfan since she discovered them on Tumblr at age 17 and more recently wrote her University of Sydney PhD on celebrity fan communities, said many fans aren’t totally sure how to feel as things have been “complicated lately”.
“[Some] have been grieving the idea of him for a while, but you never thought you would actually have to grieve him,” Carroll said.
“Liam was never my favourite. I was always a Niall and a Harry girl. But he obviously was such a core part of the band … You’re always kind of half supporting him.”
The outpouring on social media, she says, has been enormous: “People are grieving the memories and the expectations [about One Direction reuniting one day] and how your relationship to the band is now forever changed.”
“I feel like every woman from her mid-20s to her mid-30s has some kind of relationship to [One Direction], or memories with them … That’s one of the really important things about fandom: at its best, it’s just a really caring community space.”
Australian fans outside the gates of a One Direction show in Melbourne in 2012. Credit: Getty Images
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