A Fond (and Too Soon) Farewell to Liam Payne

Singer Liam Payne has died after falling off a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Wednesday. Payne, a former member of the global musical sensation One Direction, was thirty-one.

Local media, citing local law enforcement, first broke the news Wednesday afternoon, saying that Payne had tumbled off a third-floor perch. According to Reuters, his death was confirmed by ambulance workers on the scene. In a statement made to the Associated Press, Pablo Policicchio, the spokesperson for the Security Ministry of Buenos Aires municipality, confirmed the incident. He also said that police were on site at the time, responding to an emergency call about an “aggressive man who could be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”

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Born and raised in Wolverhampton, England, Payne joined One Direction at the group’s inception; after competing on The X Factor as a solo artist, he and fellow contestants Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson were offered a record deal to perform as a group. Despite being together for just six years, 1D managed to dominate pop music during their tenure, redefining what it meant to be a boy band completely. Each of their first four albums debuted at number one on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart and, to date, they’ve sold more than 70 million records worldwide. 

After the group disbanded in 2016, Payne went on to have a solo career, releasing his debut album, LP1, in 2019. Though he never matched the success of his former group, he still earned a top ten Billboard Hot 100 hit as well as billions of streams. Earlier this month, he attended the Buenos Aires stop of Niall Horan’s world tour.

This story originally appeared on Esquire.com. Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.