Liam Payne makes candid admission in interview after leaving One Direction

The former One Direction star opened up about his struggle with the “good boy” image, revealing what he really wanted to be after leaving the boy band.

Liam Payne didn’t want to be the “good boy” of One Direction anymore as the boy band released their final album Made In The A.M. in late 2015.

After five years in the eye of a global pop storm where his every second was accounted for by a studio session, a concert tour or promotional junket, Payne told me the clean-cut 17-year-old who joined One Direction on The X Factor in 2010 was no more.

In their early years, Payne was always the peacemaker and the adult in the room when his bandmates wanted to act out during interviews or misbehave after hours.

One Direction at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards after becoming a global pop storm. Picture: AFP

But in the group’s last couple of years, he embraced the party lifestyle, drinking into the early hours of the morning after a show and enjoying the occasional dalliance with the young women, fans and music industry insiders, who entered the young men’s band bubble.

“I was a bit more chilled out back then and now I’m not, I went a little bit crazy. I was trying to be the good boy when I was a lad, that’s how people saw me. Now, not so much,” he said, chuckling.

“And that puts me and Louis in a lot of tricky situations, the ones that I used to try to get us out of. Now I say ‘F--- it!’.”

Harry Styles and Liam Payne performing in New York City. Picture: Getty Images

Payne and his bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan – Zayn Malik had left the band before their fifth and final record – had done all their growing up from hopeful teenage singers to a global pop phenomenon in front of the world.

And it was tough. Trying to maintain relationships as they constantly lapped the world to promote or tour their records was impossible, and as they released Made in the A.M., Payne and Tomlinson had both recently split from their girlfriends.

Made In The A.M. was a break-up album but didn’t reference the group’s own split which they knew was coming after its release as the members decided to follow Malik’s lead to pursue solo careers.

“A few of us have gone through break-ups as this album was being written, right down to the people we write with,” Payne said. “It is really difficult to make a great bond with somebody when you are so far away a lot of the time.

“To be honest, I don’t know what sort of lifestyle I am used to. You like being at home, but you like being away.

“Relationships are hard regardless, and putting the band on top of it adds a whole new weight that you would never expect.

“It is a very strange circumstance in which to try to devote yourself to somebody when you barely have time for yourself.”

Originally published as Liam Payne makes candid admission in interview after leaving One Direction