CNN
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Liam Payne, a former member of boy band One Direction, died after falling from a hotel window in Buenos Aires, local police said. He was 31 years old.
Payne’s death occurred Wednesday at a hotel on Calle Costa Rica in the Palermo neighborhood, according to a police statement provided to CNN.
Buenos Aires police said officers from the 14B police station went to the hotel Wednesday afternoon after receiving a 911 call about an aggressive man who may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The police statement did not identify the person as Payne.
Payne was spotted attending former bandmate Niall Horan’s concert in Argentina on October 2, according to videos of the show posted on social media.
He recently celebrated his 31st birthday in the UK, according to a video posted on Snapchat. Payne was born in Wolverhampton in the West Midlands and is the youngest of three children. He is a graduate of Wolverhampton City University, where he studied Music Technology.
Payne was best known as a member of the famous British boy band One Direction. The band, which also includes Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Horan, first formed in 2010 after each member appeared on British reality show The X Factor.
CNN has reached out to Payne’s representatives and former One Direction bandmates for comment.
“I love being on stage,” Payne said of the group’s performance and songwriting in a 2015 interview with Entertainment Weekly. He said he was most proud of co-writing their song “What a Feeling.”
“That was a big piece that me and Louis sat down and wrote together,” Payne recalls. “It kind of came together. It was inspired by the sound of Fleetwood Mac. Just the right amount of traffic. Imagine driving along the coast.”
One Direction announced their hiatus in 2015, but Payne released his debut solo album LP1 in 2019. In May 2023, Payne announced that he was working on a new album that he was “really excited about” and revealed that he was planning a tour.
He has spoken candidly about his past struggles with substance abuse and talked about completing treatment and six months of sobriety in the summer of 2023.
The tour was scheduled to begin in South America in September of the same year, but Payne suffered from a kidney infection and the scheduled dates had to be postponed.
In March of this year, Payne released a song called “Teardrops.”
Payne had a son with former Girls Aloud singer group Cheryl Cole, born in 2017.
In a video shared on YouTube in 2023, Payne spoke about the love he felt for his son Bear.
“He’s great. He’s growing up so fast,” Payne said at the time. “He’s much smarter than I thought. He’s a mysterious person.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
