Louis Tomlinson has opened up about struggling to come to terms with the death of Liam Payne in a soul-baring interview.
The One Direction bandmates first met in 2010 when they were put together and mentored by Simon Cowell on The X Factor, going on to become the world’s biggest boyband.
While 1D went on indefinite hiatus in 2015 and all forged successful solo careers, Tomlinson and Payne remained close.
Tragedy then struck when Payne died at the age of 31 on October 16, 2024. He fell from his third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Tomlinson, 33, joined fellow One Direction stars Harry Styles, 31, Niall Horan, 32, and Zayn Malik, 32, in penning an emotional tribute to his beloved friend, describing Payne as a ‘brother’ and reminiscing about how they would talk for ‘hours’ on the phone.
Now, following the first anniversary of Payne’s untimely death, the Walls hitmaker has admitted he will ‘never accept’ what happened.
‘I naively thought that, at this point, I’d unfortunately be a little bit more well-versed with grief than other people my age,’ he began, having lost his mum, Johannah Deakin, to leukemia in 2016, followed by sister Félicité at the age of 18 three years later after an accidental overdose.
Tomlinson added to The Independent: ‘I thought that might mean something, but it didn’t at all.
‘It’s something I’ll never really accept. I don’t think.’
His comments come after Tomlinson told Rolling Stone that he had ‘never lost a friend before’, saying the 15th anniversary of 1D’s formation in July ‘brought up’ unwanted feelings.
‘You know, there’s still a level in my head [where it feels] unjust and frustrating that he’s not with us anymore. So, it just brought up those feelings, although I’m still living with them anyway.’
Tomlinson continued courageously: ‘It was really, really, impossibly difficult for me to deal with losing Liam.’
Again, having suffered two huge losses already, he said that he assumed this would ‘soften the blow’.
‘[That was] super naive. It’s very different. I’ve never lost a friend before.’
In his original social media tribute to Payne, Tomlinson was full of compliments for how the Strip That Down hitmaker ‘shaped’ the band.
‘And for the record, Liam was in my opinion the most vital part of One Direction,’ his Instagram caption read.
‘His experience from a young age, his perfect pitch, his stage presence, his gift for writing. The list goes on. Thank you for shaping us Liam.’
Tomlinson has been the most open about his grief out of all the band members, recently recalling to the Diary of a CEO podcast that Horan was the one to break the news to them after seeing it online.
Horan, in fact, was visited by Payne shortly before he died, as he attended his concert in Argentina with girlfriend Kate Cassidy.
‘I feel so fortunate that I got to see him recently,’ Horan wrote last October. ‘I sadly didn’t know that after saying goodbye and hugging him that evening, I would be saying goodbye forever. It’s heartbreaking.’
Meanwhile, Styles wrote that ‘it was an honour to be alongside [Payne]’ as he fulfilled his ‘greatest joy’ of ‘making other people happy’.
Malik, who officially left One Direction in March 2015 to go solo, also dedicated his recent tour shows to his late friend, displaying tributes on the screen as he performed for fans.
The Pillowtalk singer is due to reunite with Tomlinson next year for a multi-million-pound Netflix road trip documentary, following them as they travel across America.
The doc, which came as unexpected news to Directioners, will offer an emotional insight into the pair’s relationship, which became strained after Malik’s departure from the group, as well as their responses to Payne’s death.
On the first anniversary of Payne’s death this week, his sisters Nicola Payne and Ruth Gibbins paid tribute to the late star on Instagram, with Ruth admitting she is still ‘paralysed’ by grief daily.
Her emotional statement read: ‘I underestimated grief, woah, did I underestimate it. I am paralysed by it daily.
‘I thought I had felt it before, but I know the losses before you were just intense sadness, you are the loss of my life, the one person who l will miss at every single occasion in my life. I’d taken for granted that my little brother would be there through life.
‘You shouldn’t have died.’
Ruth also shared she had been suffering from a recurring nightmare of being in the One Direction star’s hotel room, but he could not hear her ‘screaming’ for him.
She added: ‘My brain is locked on your last minutes on this earth, the unaccounted minutes, the minutes I will never have the answers to, the minutes that changed everything.’
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