LIAM PAYNE, ONE DIRECTION AND X FACTOR: END OF AN ERA. BY SANDRA HARRIS.
LIAM PAYNE, ONE DIRECTION AND THE X FACTOR: END OF AN ERA… BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Liam Payne, pop star, X FACTOR alumnus , big football and wrestling fan and father of one, has died in Argentina, where he was on holiday with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy. He fell – or jumped, we don’t know- from a hotel balcony shortly after hotel staff had called the police, saying that an aggressive man under the influence of drugs and alcohol was wrecking the place. He was only thirty-one. I have a son of nineteen who is champing at the bit for fame and fortune. No matter how many times I tell him that those things aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, nothing sinks in. He’s adamant. In a way, I can hardly blame him. He was born in 2005, in an era when Simon Cowell’s smash hit TV talent show-slash-factory assembly line THE X FACTOR , then in its infancy, was convincing kids all over England and Ireland that they too could be the next big music star. He grew up watching this and other ...