Niall Horan opened up about the death of his former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne in a new interview with The Times U.K., noting that he spent time with Payne in Argentina a few weeks before he died.
Payne died on Oct. 16, 2024, after falling from the third floor of a hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was 31.
“I’m glad of that, it means my last memory of him was happy,” Horan said in the interview. “It still feels surreal. On day one I was, like, ‘Nah, it didn’t happen.’ Our friendship was a bond that was there forever even if we hadn’t seen each other for a while and it’s wild that one day, like the flick of a switch, he’s gone.”
Horan explained that although Payne’s death evokes “sadness,” he tries to reminisce on the many great memories they made together.
“When I think of Liam’s passing, there is sadness, but it also makes me laugh and smirk because of the memories we had,” Horan said. “I’ll go to places and think of something stupid in a hotel or something random that makes me laugh. We always had good fun in Australia because we were able to get out and go to the beach. Liam wasn’t too bad at surfing. I can barely swim.”
The artist is gearing up for the release of his fourth studio album Dinner Party, which includes a track dedicated in Payne’s honor.
Entitled “End of an Era,” Horan was asked what he thought the “Strip That Down” singer would think of the song. “I think it’s his type of song, he liked Coldplay, he loved songs like ‘You & I’ by One Direction, songs that went somewhere,” he responded.
The British boy band One Direction was assembled on The X Factor in 2010. Consisting of Payne, Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik, they quickly shot to international stardom, and remained so through March 2015, when Malik announced he was exiting the group. They remained as a foursome through the beginning of 2016.
Payne’s fellow former One Direction band member Styles recently opened up about losing Payne, telling Zane Lowe that after his death, he vowed to live life to the fullest to honor him.