Louis Tomlinson has reflected on the “impossibly difficult” death of his friend and former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne, who tragically died last year. Louis opened up about how he had “never lost a friend before”.
Liam tragically died after falling from a hotel balcony while holidaying in Argentina in October 2024. He met Louis when they both auditioned for X Factor when they were teenagers. Though they both auditioned as solo performers, they were put into a band, called One Direction, alongside Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of One Direction’s formation. Louis has now spoken about the affect his friend’s death had on him.
“It was really uncomfortable, actually, the 15th anniversary, because the]collective] feeling to celebrate is as important, if not more important than ever, on behalf of Liam”, he said. “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”.
He added: “It was really, really, impossibly difficult for me to deal with losing Liam. Naively, I thought that because at this point, I’m relatively well versed in grief for my age, that it might soften the blow. ]That was] super-naive. It’s very different. I’ve never lost a friend before”.
Louis went on to call Liam the “safest pair of hands” of any of the One Direction members as he had the most pre-X Factor experience, while the rest of them were all “so amateur”.
“We were all so amateur but he was already where he needed to be by the time he did his first audition”, he said. “None of us would have admitted it at the time, because you have a lot of pride as a young lad, but we all looked up to him like that”.
This all came out in an interview with Rolling Stone. Louis later addressed how he spoke about Liam the day after his death. He said he felt the need to “set the record straight” when he paid tribute to his friend on social media. He wanted to correct the “deeply unfair” narrative Liam had gotten in the press after an interview in 2022 saw him share negative opinions on his time in a boyband.
“For the record, Liam was in my opinion the most vital part of One Direction”, he wrote in October last year. “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”.
“Anyone who knew him personally would know how deeply unfair that was”, he told Rolling Stone. “Anything that he got wrong in life, Liam – which, by the way, we all do daily – it was never through malice. It was only through miscommunication – him just not being able to express himself in the way he needed to.
” He was just a very misunderstood person, I think, from a public perspective. If there is ever any judgment on his character, I think nine times out of 10, you can reflect on that, and the reflection is that he was someone who just wanted to be liked. “
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Source: Mirror
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