Liam Payne: The Deadly Stigma Surrounding Early Fame, Addiction, And Mental Health In Men – And Why We Need To Continue The Conversation Following His Passing

We’ve been mentioning Liam Payne a whole lot as of late, and it’s mostly due to the fact that he’s been making headlines for all the wrong reasons in recent weeks. First, it was reported that his ex-fiancée, Maya Henry file a cease-and-desist against him for harassing her and her family well after their breakup in 2022, and then he sadly passed away on October 16 after falling off a third floor at an Argentinian hotel. Since then, there probably hasn’t been a day that he wasn’t on the news in one way or another. Most recently (as of writing this blog entry), Nicole Scherzinger paid tribute to the fallen One Direction star, and Andrew Lloyd Webber revealed that she and Payne were exchanging text messages on the day that he died.

Very sad details have been released about Payne’s life since his death. Moreover, sad details of his last days have been released since his death. In my blog entry about Nikki Bella, I mentioned that Payne had female escorts waiting to be paid by him for services provided in the hotel he was staying at. Since publishing that blog entry, it’s been reported that the women were NOT escorts. He was staying at the hotel alone. He initially came to Argentina to watch his former bandmate, Niall Horan perform, as well as to reconnect with him. There have been pictures published of the two posing together that night on October 2.

Payne was in Argentina with his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy. They were meant to be there for 5 days, according to her. But the trip turned into a two week stay, and she left on October 12 alone. That was when he checked in to the hotel where he died only days later. It’s a very eerie coincidence for numerous reasons. Only two days before his death, his ex-fiancée, Maya Henry, opened up in an interview that he always felt that he was going to die young. In her fictional book, which is based on real-life events throughout her relationship with Payne, the protagonist’s boyfriend had a premonition that he would die of falling from a balcony.

We didn’t know much about Payne’s relationship with Cassidy except for what they’d posted on their respective socials. Many of One Direction fans, or Directioners as they call themselves, blame her for his death because ‘she left him alone in Argentina’, which is so beyond unfair and cruel. Henry, on her part, has said that Payne’s friend attempted to get her to not release her book by manipulating her and telling her that if something were to happen to Payne, she’d blame herself, and his fans would blame her too. Since Payne’s death, it’s been reported that Cassidy feels guilty for leaving Payne alone in Argentina and feels responsible for his death. A source opened up to US Magazine, ‘This past week has been a nightmare for her and she is still in a state of shock. It hasn’t hit her yet. Kate and Liam had a strong relationship and she feels immense guilt leaving Argentina early and leaving him alone. They had been rocky in the past but they were in a good place during their vacation in Argentina, despite him wanting her to stay. Kate has seen Liam’s ups and downs over the last 2 years and knew he was struggling at times. She’s always been supportive and has stuck by him.’

Time and time again, women are blamed and held responsible for other people’s, particularly men’s, actions. We heavily discussed this in previous posts on this blog. The fact of the matter is, however, unless Cassidy or Henry were the ones who pushed Payne to his death, neither of them responsible. Since his passing, Henry hasn’t publicly spoken of Payne, but Cassidy did. On October 23, she opened up more about their relationship and her grief on Instagram. She wrote, ‘My heart is shattered in ways I can’t put into words. I wish you could see the huge impact you’ve had on the world, even as it feels so dark right now. You brought so much happiness and positivity to everyone — millions of fans, your family, friends and especially me. You are so incredibly loved. You are — because I can’t say were — my best friend, the love of my life and everyone you touched felt just as special as I did. Your energy was contagious, lighting up every room you walked into. A few weeks ago, we sat outside on a beautiful evening manifesting our lives together. I keep your note close, even though you told me not to look at it. It said, ‘Me and Kate to marry within a year/engaged & together forever 444.’

Payne was also a father to his son, Bear, whose mother is Girls Aloud singer and former ‘The X Factor UK’ judge, Cheryl Cole. She was actually a judge when Payne first auditioned for the reality singing competition. He was 14 and ahead of was 24. Since his death, a clip from that audition where the former couple, who dated between 2016 and 2018, has resurfaced again, where Payne winked at Cole while he was singing. Cole has been getting a lot of hate as well, just like Cassidy and Henry, but especially Cassidy, as Henry is getting a lot of love too, more than she does hate. Many commentators call her a groomer for being 10 years older than Payne. Let’s get one thing straight, though. Cole and Payne only met when they were 24 and 14 respectively, but they weren’t in each other’s lives personally speaking. They reconnected years later, when Payne was 22, a full grown adult, and even more so than an average 22 year old because of the life he’d lived since he found fame on ‘The X Factor’. Numerous times following their breakup, Payne called Cole to be the most important person in his life.

In my previous post, we heavily discussed Simon Cowell’s interview on the ‘Diary Of A CEO’ podcast that he appeared on earlier this year. Payne also appeared on the same podcast three years ago, in 2021. While speaking with Steven Bartlett, Payne spoke openly of such things as investments he’d made throughout his career, his time as a member of One Direction, addiction, the pandemic, mental health, fatherhood, and relationships. During the time of the interview, he was on a break from his relationship with Maya Henry before they got back together, re-engaged, and broke up again. He never mentioned Henry by name, but he spoke highly of her nonetheless. In fact, he took full responsibility for his shortcomings and said that it was fully his fault that the relationship ended.

As the interview progressed, Payne spoke about addiction and the loneliness he faced with the fame that came from being 1/5 of One Direction. He said, ‘My dad said it from day one – lonely hotel rooms, man – getting locked in that room is not fun when you’ve been expose. I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be,’ he shared. ‘Where is rock bottom for me? You would have never seen it. I’m very good at hiding it. No one would have ever seen it. Rock bottom… I mean, I don’t even know if I’ve hit it yet… I can make that choice now and quick my last moment as my rock bottom or I can make a new one.’ When he was asked if he ever experienced suicidal ideation and his alcoholism, Payne said, ‘Yeah. There is some stuff that I’ve definitely never spoken about to do with it. It was really, really, really severe. It was a problem. And it was only until I saw myself after that I was like ‘Right, I need to fix myself. There were a few pictures of me on a boat and I was all bloated out and I call it my pills-and-booze face. My face was 10 times bigger than it is now. The problem was, in the band… the best way to secure us, because of how big we’d got, was just to lock us in our rooms. What’s in the room? A mini-bar. So at a certain point I thought, I’m just going to have a party-for-one and that seemed to carry on for many years of my life… It was wild but it was the only way you could get frustration out.’

Payne went on to speak of the misconception of his time as a member of One Direction. Most people would think that there’s freedom to do whatever you want. But that simply wasn’t the case for Payne or the rest of the other 4 members, which included Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik. The 5 young men, who were just teenagers at the time. The band were forced to stay in their hotel rooms at all times following each show they performed. Of that period in his life, Payne said, ‘So, at a certain point, I just thought ‘Well, I’m going to have a party for one,’ and that just seemed to carry on throughout many years of my life. And then you look back at how long you’ve been drinking and it’s ‘Jesus Christ, that’s a long time,’ even for someone who was as young as I was. It was wild but it was the only way you could get the frustration out in the day. As a teen, the one thing you need is freedom to make choices and freedom to do stuff. We were always locked into a room at night. And then it would be car, hotel room, stage, sing, f-ed. So, it was like they pulled the dust cloth off, let us out for a minute to go ‘Woohoo’ then it’s like ‘Get back underneath here!’’ Moreover, Payne spoke of his struggle with alcoholism during UK’s lengthy lockdown. He said, ‘Having a lot of time at home – I think a lot of people had this same sort of thing: alcohol. It was just getting earlier and earlier and earlier. Easier and easier to go to. What I’ve found more than anything with the alcohol is boundaries. If you’re on Zoom you can probably get away with being a bit tipsy, when you’re not supposed to be.’

Payne speaking of loneliness reminded me of Demi Lovato speaking of the loneliness she experienced at the hands of her management team which was the main cause of her overdose in 2018 that almost cost her life. At the time of Payne’s interview, he seemed happy and healthy. He seemed to be in a good place. A year later, however, things turned for the worst when he did an interview with Logan Paul on his the ‘Impaulsive’ podcast. Let’s just say it wasn’t Payne’s best interview, and it wasn’t his finest moment. But it did motivate Payne to get help and work on his health. A year later, in 2023, Payne posted a video on YouTube updating his fans on his sobriety journey. He said, ‘One of the biggest remarks I made was about the One Direction thing… and a lot of self-protection, I suppose, in that moment, more than anything. The rest of the boys really stuck by me when I needed them most, they kinda came to the rescue. Even Zayn, as well, which is why I did send him a little thank you online. It came across really big-headed didn’t it? A lot of what I said came from the wrong place. I was so angry at what was going on around me and instead of taking a look inwards I decided to look outwards at everybody else and I just think yeah I took it out on everybody else, which is just wrong, really. I have had a lot of time to recollect over those moments. I kinda had to go away to kinda get better. The whole thing up to that point was just a scramble to stay relevant.’

Though his appearance on the podcast was embarrassing for him and he regretted making the comments that he did, Payne had said that it was a pivotal moment for him, one that might’ve saved his life. After watching himself in that interview, he decided to get sober. He stayed in a rehab facility for 100 days and lived a sober lifestyle. The thing about addiction is that it never goes away. It comes in waves. Hence the keyword when describing sobriety is ‘recovering’. You’re not sober; you’re a recovering addict. Matthew Perry, who starred as Chandler Bing on the hit series, ‘Friends’, and passed away in 2023, spoke openly of his sobriety. He wrote in his book, ‘I lived half my life in one form of another of treatment center or sober living house. Which is fine when you are twenty-four years old, less fine when you re forty-two years old. Now I was forty-nine, still struggling to get this monkey off my back. I married Monica and got driven back to the treatment center — at the height of my highest point in ‘Friends,’ the highest point in my career, the iconic moment on the iconic show — in a pickup truck helmed by a sober technician. When I was sober, I’d think back to the recent past and wonder why I’d ever picked up pills or drugs after getting clean. There is a hell. Don’t let anyone tell you different. I’ve been there: it exists: end of discussion.’

Perry said he was only able to publish his memoir, ‘Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing’, which was released a year before his death, because he felt secure in his sobriety. He said in an interview while promoting the book, ‘It took very hard work to get there. Because you can’t write a book like this and then, you know, you appear drunk at your local bar. The kind of message that I guess I give out with this book is don’t give up. There’s help out there. I’ve been helped on a daily basis. If I didn’t get help, I wouldn’t be sitting here. It’s all about finding somebody that knows more than you know about this stuff and listening.’ And when he was asked how he’d like to be remembered, Perry said, ‘I’d like to be remembered as somebody who lived well, loved well, was a seeker. And his paramount thing is that he wants to help people. That’s what I want.’

In a 2022 TikTok video, Payne himself shared how he wanted to be remembered. He said, ‘Honestly, just being a nice guy. I’d rather be known for being a nice guy than anything else. For me now, it’s trying to give everybody the time they deserve with you if that’s the thing they’re excited about. It doesn’t matter what they say or what they do. You just gotta give your time and effort into those people, because it comes back. So, yeah, I’d rather be known for being nice than anything else.’ And he was. He was a nice guy. He’d always go out of his way to make his fans happy. Only hours before his death, he was greeting fans outside of his hotel room, posing for photos and signing autographs. He wanted to make other people happy even when he wasn’t happy himself, and even when outsiders bullied him online for no apparent reason other than the pleasure of it. Years before his death, Payne made a whopping £80,000 donation to a London food poverty charity during the Covid lockdowns after a fan who volunteered at Euston Food Bank messaged him on social media. The director, Dorothea Hackman said of the donation, ‘Liam Payne was the kindest, most sensitive young man I have ever met over an incredibly long period of time. He got in touch out of the blue and offered help. We desperately needed the money at the time. We were dealing with a massive increase in demand because of lockdown people were desperate for food. He got in touch and asked what we did and what we needed. We told him about our work and he said, ‘Right, I’m giving you £80,000.’’ In addition, he volunteered at the food banks his money went to.

But that wasn’t where Payne’s kindness stopped. He was said to be so moved by reading stories of stricken patients on GoFundMe that he gave away cash in a few hours. It was said that he gave away £10,000 in one night to sick children, teens, and young adults. A source told The Sun, ‘Liam had all this money and, yes, he had fancy things in life, but he also had a burning desire to use his money to do good. Even in the weeks leading up to his death and when he was battling his own demons he was helping others. He was really passionate about being a good person, especially when it came to children. He was like one of his idols George Michael in that respect.’

Since his death, Payne’s fans started a petition called Liam’s Law, which ‘implore lawmakers to create legislation safeguarding the mental health of artists within the industry’, with the aim to protect artists’ mental health. As of Friday, October 25, the petition reached 115,000 signatures. Liam’s Law would necessitate ‘regular mental health check-ups, adequate rest periods and the presence of mental health professionals on-set, including any ongoing support during their career.’ I think it’s such a wonderful thing that the fans are doing now following their idol’s untimely death. With that said, we can’t forget about regular people; regular, real-life men who might also go through their own mental health struggles. I’ve witnessed a male mental health struggle with my own eyes. It was completely different than the struggle that Liam Payne had endured, of course; but it was a struggle nonetheless. In fact, I’ve witnessed multiple mental health struggles experienced by men; but I’m going to speak on one of them in depth.

I have a (male) friend who recently listened to a podcast episode that featured Dr. Alok Kanojia, also known as Dr. K, in it. He’s a psychiatrist who wrote the book, ‘How to Raise a Healthy Gamer: Break Bad Screen Habits, End Power Struggles, and Transform Your Relationship with Your Kids.’ He recommended to me that I listen to that specific episode he listened to. I did, and all I could say was…’WOW!’ It was something out of the ordinary – extraordinary, more like. As he watched the episode, he had an epiphany; that he might suffer from altruistic personality disorder. According to Barbara Oakley, a pioneer in the matter, calls it ‘good intentions gone awry.’ People with INFJ personality type (The Advisor) are more likely to be altruistic. They tend to be determined, reserved and altruistic in their behavior. They’re also more likely to have been abused in their lifetime.

As I watched the podcast interview featuring Dr. K, my friend’s life suddenly made sense to me. For the longest time, he was misunderstood. I’ve known him for years, and the best way I could describe him is ‘overly selfless’. He’d, no pun intended, drop everything to help someone; even when that help wasn’t actually needed and he was being gaslighted. I’ve seen him being used and abused by his generosity. The people he considered to be close friends were never really cared for him in the first place. It was almost heartbreaking to watch. He’s a good guy with a good heart. As I got to know him, I made a few realizations. I recognized that my friend’s flawed personality came from his upbringing. He grew up with his father, who wasn’t a great man. He was a great provider, but not a great father. Calling him a good father would be an overstatement. He was never a good father to my friend. He gave my friend a roof over his head, but that’s about it. Everything else came with its own set of agenda. My friend never felt loved by his father; not in his childhood, not his adulthood. That’s why he was always so selfless; because he wanted to give love to others that he never received. And he was so desperate for his father’s approval, as well as for him to show love and care. In a way, all those people that he went above and beyond for represented his father. When they didn’t show the same amount of care as he did, he’d get angry and smash things.

My friend didn’t stop trying to gain his father’s approval in adulthood. In hindsight, he was a 30 year old man, but still that same desperate, lost little boy. It caused him a lot of pain and sorrow; emotionally and even physically. My friend struggles with a chronic illness. And his condition worsened in the first years of his diagnosis. No one could understand what triggered his symptoms. It became obvious overtime that his father was his greatest trigger. My friend just didn’t know it. Or he knew, but he refused to believe it. My friend having his father in his life affected his self-esteem, his self-worth, and self-acceptance. It was only after he had his son that he had his own epiphany about his father – he was the only person in his life that was holding him back. He wanted and needed to be the father he didn’t have to his own son. He needed to live his own damn life. In order to do that, he needed to completely cut his father out of his life. And it took a massive fight between my friend and his father for my friend to make that realization. You can never continually try to please anyone who will never see you as good enough, even if it’s your parents. Even the most patient people run out of patience.

It’s been over a year since my friend talked to his father last, and it’s made such a huge difference in his life. He’s happy. He’s healthy. He’s brave. He’s loving. He’s loyal. He’s content. He’s at peace. He’s in the best place he’s ever been in his life. With that said, I think it’s safe to say that we need to talk more and more about male mental health. As Matthew Perry once said, ‘Let’s make stigmas a stigma.’ I know that this is a blog about women’s issues, particularly women’s mental health. But we can’t push away the matter that men go through mental health struggles as well. If we do, more and more men will end up dead, and we just can’t let this happen. We can’t stop talking about the importance of mental health in men, and we must be supportive of men throughout their struggles. We must encourage them to make positive changes in their lives and omit any inconveniences and triggers. For Liam Payne and Matthew Perry, the main triggers in their respective lives were those who didn’t have their best interests at heart. Some of which should be charged and gone to jail. In Matthew Perry’s case, they are. For my friend, it was his father, who also didn’t have his best interest at heart. Yet again, let’s never stop talking about men’s mental health. Liam Payne and Matthew Perry were the starting point of the conversation. Now that they’re both gone, we need to continue that conversation.