Liam Payne, who segued from One Direction star to successful soloist, died Wednesday (Oct. 16) at age 31. According to police, Payne died after falling from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
After forming in 2010 on the U.K. version of The X Factor, One Direction — Payne, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik (who left the group in 2015), Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson — became one of the most prominent forces on the Billboard charts in the 2010s, with Payne subsequently forging his own chart-topping solo career.
One Direction boasts four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200: Up All Night and Take Me Home, both in 2012; Midnight Memories (2013); and FOUR (2014). Made in the A.M., the most recent album by the group, which went on hiatus in 2016, reached No. 2 in 2015.
The act tallied six top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100: “What Makes You Beautiful” (No. 4, 2012); “Live While We’re Young” (No. 3, 2012); “Best Song Ever” (No. 2, 2013); “Story of My Life” (No. 6, 2013); “Drag Me Down” (No. 3, 2015); and “Perfect” (No. 10, 2015).
One Direction crowned Billboard’s 2014 year-end Top Artists chart. The group also placed at No. 5 for 2015, No. 8 for 2013 and No. 10 for 2012. The act has drawn 15.4 billion in radio audience for its songs and 11.8 billion on-demand U.S. song streams, according to Luminate. It has sold 30.3 million song downloads and 8.3 million albums in the U.S.
According to Billboard Boxscore, One Direction grossed $583.6 million on tour and sold 7.1 million tickets. Its Where We Are Tour finished atop the 2014 year-end Top Tours chart, with a gross of $290.2 million and 3.4 million in ticket sales.
Payne quickly translated One Direction’s massive and loyal fanbase support to solo stardom. His debut entry on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart, “Strip That Down,” featuring Quavo, reigned for two weeks in October 2017.
Notably, after One Direction tallied four Pop Airplay top 10s, reaching a No. 3 best with “What Makes You Beautiful,” Payne became the group’s third member, in short order, to hit No. 1 — directly supplanting Niall Horan’s “Slow Hands”; Zayn first led solo with “Pillowtalk” in May 2016. Styles has scored four solo leaders on the list (in 2020-22).
“Strip That Down” also hit No. 10 on the Hot 100.
Payne added four more Pop Airplay entries as a soloist: “Get Low,” with Zedd (No. 23, 2017); “Bedroom Floor” (No. 35, 2017); “For You (Fifty Shades Freed),” with Rita Ora (No. 37, 2018); and “Familiar,” with J Balvin (No. 25, 2018).
Payne’s debut solo album, LP1, topped Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums chart in December 2019.
As a soloist, Payne garnered 3 billion in radio audience for his songs and 897 million on-demand U.S. song streams. His solo catalog also includes 125,000 song download sales in the U.S.
—Additional reporting by Trevor Anderson and Eric Frankenberg