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 so-called ‘reality’ television shows.

Back in 2004, when the show started, my daughter and I made it the highlight of our week. Saturday afternoons back then, she had drama class. I’d collect her, we’d pick up a massive Chinese takeaway on the way home and glue ourselves to the television for half of Saturday night.

Guys and gals queued up in their thousands to get the chance to sing in front of music mogul Simon Cowell, Irish boyband manager Louis Walsh, Kylie Minogue’s less famous sister Dannii and Ozzy Osbourne’s forthright, plain-spoken missus, Sharon. The judges’ panel was changed up and added to over the years, but the show firmly remained Simon Cowell’s baby and brainchild.

Applicants went through various stages: first interview, Boot Camp, Judges’ Houses (no-one wanted to get Louis as their mentor ‘cause he only brought his mentees to Dublin instead of a Caribbean island, lol.) and the live shows. The prize was a much coveted recording contract with Simon Cowell’s record label, Syco.

Now, of course, things have changed even more and it’s social media that has the kids spellbound. They don’t even have to sing for their supper any more if they don’t want to, or if they have a voice like nails on a blackboard. They don’t have to really do anything at all, except be online a lot, which I’m guessing they are anyway.

The career of ‘influencer’ on TikTok is now what half of them are chasing, but ask them what they want to be famous for and they can’t even tell you. They just want to get big wads of cash for being online twenty-four-seven wearing fancy gear and demonstrating flashy cosmetics for some retail giant. It’s all a bit shallow, isn’t it?

Liam Payne was in One Direction, the world-famous boyband created, or ‘manufactured,’ as they say, on THE X FACTOR in 2010. Ironically, they didn’t win their year, coming only third to painter-decorator Matt Cardle (you’ll notice that I didn’t say ‘former painter-decorator Matt Cardle,’ only I’m fairly sure he was back up that ladder as soon as his music career bombed!), but they went on to be the biggest thing that ever came out of the show.

Fame and fortune and everything that goes with it (I thank you all!) quickly followed. These five ordinary British lads (I keep forgetting Niall Horan’s Oirish like me!) had the whole world in the palm of their sweaty mitts for a while. I remember taking my little boy, who was eight at the time, to see their concert movie, THIS IS US, in 2013. It was awful, of course, but we had a lovely dinner after it to compensate.

The band split up in 2015, a few months after one of its members, Zayn Malik, handed in his boyband stripes. I always assumed they’d get back together though. I even thought it might be a publicity stunt. You know, they split up, teenage girls everywhere go crazy with grief, they get back together and sell a million concert tickets. Everybody’s happy. I don’t think that’s going to happen now, somehow…

Anyway, poor Liam Payne. Stories abound of drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, rehab, mental health issues and him trashing his hotel room in his final hours. Also, seemingly an ex-girlfriend called Maya Henry released a novel last week that ‘outed’ him as an alcoholic abuser. Some folks are wondering if his death was somehow connected to the book’s release. How did he feel about the book? Well, I guess no-one likes being slagged off.

The main thing I remember about Liam Payne, other than he was in One Direction, is that he had a relationship with pop singer Cheryl Tweedy Cole that resulted in a baby boy called Bear, which I still think is an adorable name for a little boy. The lad is seven years old now.

Cheryl Tweedy Cole started out in girl-band Girls Aloud, which was born out of a television show called POP IDOLS, so they had the reality TV thing in common. She was ten years older than him when they got together. He was only twenty-three, plus she’d known him since he was much younger. (He made his first ever appearance on the show when he was only fourteen.) Is that creepy at all? I don’t want to be the one to say it. Someone else say it first. Ah go on. Say it…

I’ve heard some people online say that the coverage of Liam’s death is a bit over the top, considering the death toll in Gaza. But that’s what it’s like when any celebrity dies under suspicious or bizarre circumstances.

I’m just sad that another vulnerable soul has joined the ranks of the superstars who couldn’t cope with the dangers that come with fame and fortune and died before their time, either of suicide, drug overdoses and/or alcohol poisoning.

Matthew Perry, Whitney Houston and her daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, Truman Capote, Aaron Carter, Michael Jackson, Kurt Cobain, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Brian Jones, Bon Scott, Robin Williams, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Coolio, Dalida, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Ted Demme, Lolo Ferrari, Judy Garland, Peaches Geldof, Taylor Hawkins, Chester Bennington, Chris Cornell, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William Holden, Cory Monteith, Juice WRLD, Frida Kahlo, Rodney King, Margot Kidder, Heath Ledger, Phil Lynott, Dolores O’Riordan, Marilyn Monroe, Brittany Murphy, Tom Petty, River Phoenix, Edgar Allan Poe, Elvis Presley, Prince, George Sanders, Anna Nicole Smith, Verne Troyer, Ike Turner, Natalie Wood, Sid Vicious, Paula Yates, poor Amy Whitehouse and so many others.

Please excuse the deep dive but I found the list of names to be fascinating (some of them I didn’t even know had passed), plus I thought it would be no harm for my son to see just how many times in the last century someone’s big dreams of fame and fortune have turned to ashes. He’s not for turning, however. But I can’t and won’t stop him from trying to achieve his dreams. I’ll just be there for him whenever he needs me. As a parent, that’s really all you can do.

In the meantime, R.I.P. Liam Payne. Hope you really are at peace now, wherever you are.