Liam Payne Reveals His Experience With ‘Severe’ Suicidal Thoughts, Sobriety Struggles

Liam Payne reveals there was more behind the glitz and glamour in his early days of fame. The former One Direction member shares that he went through a period of heavy addiction and “severe” suicidal thoughts during his time with the popular boy band. While visiting Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast, the star posted a few photos of him back in the band days showing the difference in his size from then and currently. “My face was 10 times bigger than it is now. The problem was, the best way to secure us was to lock us in a room, and what is in the room? A minibar,” he told the host.

The singer went on to share that the lifestyle quickly turned into big solo parties in his day-to-day schedule, but it quickly turned toxic, he said, sharing that it pushed him to a dark place where he contemplated suicide. “Yeah. There is definitely some stuff I have never spoken about to do with it. It was really, really severe.”

Payne quickly rose to fame by joining the band One Direction at the age of 16. The group took off after being put together on Britain’s The X-Factor in 2010, but the time was shortlived. They disbanded in 2015, and for the most part, each member’s started a fairly successful solo career. Harry Styles recently took home three Grammy Awards for his album Fine Line. Payne released his debut album in 2019 after dropping a series of covers and a few singles that did pretty well including “Stack It Up” featuring a Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. He also called off his engagement with model Maya Henry after 10 months. As for Louis Tomlinson, aside from starting his own label in 2015 (Triple Strings Ltd), he’s been working on his own solo career over the last few years. Tomlinson recently released his debut album Walls in January of last year. Niall Horan hasn’t slowed down on releasing music since walking away from the group. He announced his first solo world tour in 2019 and continues to drop new music. Zayn Malik steadily released music between 2015-2019, but things are sure to slow down for the singer who recently had a baby with longtime girlfriend Gigi Hadid.