Former One Direction star Liam Payne had spoken frequently about his struggles with alcohol and drugs in the years prior to his sudden death this week.
The 31-year-old star plunged 45ft from the third floor into the courtyard of the Casa Sur Hotel in Argentina’s capital on Wednesday, before medics confirmed his death.
But perhaps less well known, was the singer’s unlikely bond with disgraced comedian and actor Russell Brand.
The pair struck up a friendship after attending AA meetings together back in 2019. They also bonded over fatherhood following the birth of Payne’s son Bear in March 2017 and Brand’s daughter Mabel in November 2016.
Speaking about the pop star’s tragic death, Brand posted a bizarre and somewhat impersonal video about addiction.
He referred to Payne without using his name directly, stating his death was ‘sorrowful’, but also an opportunity for ‘reflection’.
The Get Him To The Greek actor said: ‘Whenever a high-profile drug addict or alcoholic dies and you have a sense there might be a connection to their disease and their death. I believe it brings up a lot of sorrow, of course like any death, but also cause for reflection. What is it the alcoholic and addict is looking for?
‘Well the way I was taught is that we are looking for a spiritual experience, a spiritual awakening.’
But Brand insisted ‘I don’t want to speculate too much’ about this most recent celebrity death because he ‘has been wrong so many times in the past’.
Russell Brand and Liam Payne had an unlikely friendship after they bonded at AA meetings – they are pictured here at a party hosted by Kevin Systrom and Jamie Oliver back in 2015
The pair (pictured in 2015) also bonded over fatherhood following the birth of Payne’s son Bear in March 2017 and Brand’s daughter Mabel in November 2016
Speaking about the pop star’s tragic death, Brand posted a bizarre and somewhat impersonal video about addiction on ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, yesterday
Brand inferred to the news about Payne without using his name directly when speaking in the video
The Wolverhampton teenager first auditioned for the X Factor aged 14 before returning two years later when One Direction was formed.
They became one of the biggest pop groups in the world but six years after they were formed, with more than 20 million albums sold, the band were placed on indefinite hiatus.
It’s not clear exactly how and when he first met Brand, but speaking on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show in 2017, the year he welcomed his son Bear, Liam revealed he’d swapped parenting tips with the comedian.
‘I was actually on a flight home with Russell Brand, we were discussing [being a] dad,’ he said. ‘And everybody downloads one app that is like the “put the baby to sleep” app. For us, it’s hairdryer sounds.’
In 2018, Payne told the BBC that Brand was someone who inspired him when he was younger.
Ahead of the UK General Election the following year, Payne was asked about his political stance, to which he admitted he had been disinterested in politics in his younger years.
He said Russell’s outspoken views were what encouraged him to become more involved in social issues.
‘Russell used to make me think and want to look at politics. So I think it’s quite important that we have those examples,’ he said.
In 2019, Payne opened up about how he’d used alcohol to cope with the massive success of One Direction and their subsequent split, naming Brand as one of the people who helped guide him through those years.
He told This Morning at the time: ‘I had a thing with drink and it was a guy called Chip Somers who got me sober. I was sober for about a year and visited Russell Brand. We went down to meetings together.’
Brand was a patron of the Focus 12 treatment centre, founded by Somers at the time.
‘For anybody who’s having a problem with mental health, the best thing to do is speak to someone. We’re all as crazy as the next person.’
In an interview with Esquire, Payne went into further detail about the AA meetings he’d attended, held in working men’s clubs and community church rooms.
One Direction pictured on The X Factor in 2010 before they became one of the biggest pop bands in the world
Liam (pictured) auditioned for the X Factor aged 14 before returning two years later when One Direction was formed
In 2019, Payne (pictured) opened up about how he’d used alcohol to cope with the massive success of One Direction and their subsequent split, naming Brand as one of the people who helped guide him through those years
Liam Payne was outspoken about how the global fame of One Direction changed his life and affected his relationship with alcohol , once admitting: ‘I don’t know if I’ve hit rock bottom yet’
The singer fell from a suite at the Casa Sur Hotel with a balcony overlooking a swimming pool and an outdoor restaurant, and is thought to have landed in the spot circled above
Liam Payne plunged from the third floor into the courtyard of the Casa Sur Hotel (file image)
‘Loads of factory workers, bin men, whatever you can imagine [were there] and they’re telling each other stories,’ he explained.
‘He [Russell] was recounting his time of before, when he used to whatever, and it was really interesting and it’s nice to feel you’re not alone.’
Speaking to USA Today, he paid tribute to Brand, saying that he appreciated the support of someone ‘going through the same s*** as you are’.
However, he admitted that he struggled to be fully open in meetings because of his fame.
‘For me personally, it was nice going with Russell because obviously my life is constantly documented and privacy is a huge deal for me, so (it was good) seeing that I could be open in a room sometimes.
But it was also a little bit of a problem for me because I still couldn’t be as open as I wanted to, just with the worry that somebody would tell somebody or might say something (to the media) when it was supposed to be anonymous.’
While he had a year of sobriety in 2019, Payne later admitted he relapsed into addiction continued during the Covid pandemic.
Unable to see his son Bear, he stayed at home alone drinking and watching Netflix.
A year later in 2021 while appearing on Ant Middleton’s Straight Talking programme, he admitted how bad things had got, saying he was ‘quite lucky to be here’.
‘There’s times where that level of loneliness and people getting into you every day every so often… it’s like, “When will this end?”,’ he said.
That same year Payne revealed he’d used his experiences with Brand at Alcoholics Anonymous, to form the basis of a short comedic film, which he had written the script for and intended to star in.
Brand and Payne also bonded over fatherhood having welcomed their children just months apart. Payne is pictured here with his son Bear, shortly after his birth
Liam said his drinking began when the global mania for the boyband meant they were often stuck in hotel rooms, where alcohol was readily available
Speaking on This Morning in late 2019, Liam admitted he was as much scared of success as a solo artist as he was of failure
He admitted he had suffered for years with ‘social anxiety’ and ‘stress’ from being famous, and discussed the pressure his mental health was under (pictured in 2023)
‘I had a really weird AA experience,’ he joked to Steven Bartlett while appearing on The Diary of the CEO podcast.
‘I went to his house and I love Russell. I’d only seen him in movies and as a comic and My Booky Wook, I loved that stuff so I know a lot of things about him but I’m a really shy person.
‘He makes me a coffee and we sit talking about our experiences and I’ve never seen someone look at me the way he looked at me. He looks into your soul, I was like I was born again.’
At the AA meetings, Payne went on to say how Brand would take the chair and proceed to do stand up when telling his stories.
‘I’m excited about the film,’ Payne added. ‘I showed it to one of my friends and she laughed a lot’.
Payne fell to his death from the third-floor balcony of the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires on Wednesday in what prosecutors have described as a ‘drug-induced episode’.
Payne’s identity was confirmed by emergency services by checking his passport, but police do not yet have conclusive evidence regarding the circumstances of his fall.
Longstanding friends and celebrity hair stylists Royston Blythe and Nick Malenko were among the first to reach out to Payne’s heartbroken family this week following the news of his death this week.
Liam Payne with his father Geoff and mother Karen after the X Factor final in London in 2010
As well as father Geoff and mother Karen, Payne had two sisters, Nicola (left) and Ruth (right)
His mother Karen, her husband Geoff, and their daughters, Nicola and Ruth live in his home city of Wolverhampton.
Mr Malenko said: ‘I messaged his mum Karen. She’s finding it hard to speak about what’s happened, but she said ”I’ve lost my beautiful boy”.’
Paying tribute to the singer, who was once a regular at the Royston Blythe hair salon in Compton, Mr Malenko continued: ‘He was a beautiful boy inside and out.
‘It’s absolutely shocking and devastating that such a young and talent life has gone. We are never going to see him again. There are so many tears here, how can we put how we feel into words?
‘We have sold the business now, but he’d been coming to the salon to get his hair done since he was a young lad. His mum still gets her hair done there.’
In the video, posted on ‘X’ formerly known as Twitter Brand added: ‘It’s interesting people who have abundant access to Hedonistic, Epicurean and material resources find a life that’s wanting and broken laying before them unbearable.
‘Somehow we’re taught aren’t we? That the offering of our culture is substandard like that rests at the top of our hierarchies, that apex point of the ability to command the material roles, the offering the celebrity receives. ‘You will be attractive to potential mates’, ‘you will be wealthy and admired’ and there they are in ashes, body broken and spent.’
Brand went on to list other ‘alcoholics and addicts’ who he believes were killed by ‘celebrities’ including Robin Williams, Amy Winehouse and Caroline Flack.
He said a ‘spiritual solution’ would be required because the ‘culture cannot give you what it claims that it can’, noting his own ‘personal experience’.
In 2022, Brand celebrated 20 years of sobriety, a feat he said he accomplished with the help of friends and loved ones.
In 2022, Brand celebrated 20 years of sobriety, a feat he said he accomplished with the help of friends and loved ones
He successfully tackled his issues with Class A substances and alcohol in 2002 following more than a dozen brushes with the law, spending three months in rehab.
Brand said in a clip on Instagram: ‘I’m 20 years clean and sober today. It’s December the 13th. So, firstly I wanted to express my gratitude for all the people who have helped me to remain clean and sober.’
He said that he believed achieving and maintaining sobriety ‘is never done on your own,’ and that ‘even though it’s often seen and celebrated as a personal achievement – it is in essence, a community and spiritual achievement.’
Brand previously opened up on his battles with addiction in his 2017 book Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions.
He successfully tackled his issues with Class A substances in 2002 following more than a dozen brushes with the law, amongst them a high-profile arrest by the Metropolitan Police for stripping off during an anti-capitalist Mayday protest in London’s teeming Piccadilly Circus.
Then a precocious MTV reporter, he attracted further controversy by turning up for work dressed as al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, shortly after hard-line Islamic terrorists flew two passenger planes into the World Trade Centre.
He spent three months in a 12-step rehab centre in 2002 before seeking out patient support.
Last year, Brand faced allegations of rape and sexual assault between 2006 and 2013 following a joint investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches, The Times and The Sunday Times.
A documentary about the claims also included allegations of controlling, abusive and predatory behaviour.
Russell Brand has denied the allegations and said in an online interview it was ‘very, very painful’ to be accused of ‘what I consider to be the most appalling crimes’.
He has been questioned by the Metropolitan Police in relation to nine alleged offences. The Met said in January its inquiries were continuing.
