{"id":14429,"date":"2024-10-18T09:50:19","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.drinkfood.info\/?p=14429"},"modified":"2024-10-18T09:50:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:50:19","slug":"exclusive-liam-paynes-serious-childhood-trauma-and-why-having-a-baby-so-young-with-cheryl-couldnt-bring-the-stability-that-may-have-saved-him-katie-hind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.drinkfood.info\/?p=14429","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE Liam Payne’s serious childhood trauma and why having a baby so young with Cheryl couldn’t bring the stability that may have saved him: KATIE HIND"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It was the autumn of 2011, and I had been summoned to Sony Music\u2019s west London HQ to meet Britain\u2019s hottest new boy band.<\/span><\/h1>\n
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A few months earlier, five hopeful teenagers had auditioned for\u00a0ITV<\/span>\u2019s\u00a0X Factor<\/span>\u00a0talent show \u2013 and the music impresario\u00a0Simon Cowell<\/span>\u00a0had drawn them together to form\u00a0One Direction<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The fledgling stars had already attracted a global fanbase in the millions: a juggernaut that was drawing comparisons to 1960s Beatlemania, even though they had yet to release a song.<\/p>\n

Now that was about to change. The band\u2019s debut single, What Makes You Beautiful, was launching the following week \u2013 and I was there to interview the boys behind it.<\/p>\n

Although they had seemed like sweet young things when we had briefly met at the Fountain Studios in Wembley, north-west London, during their X Factor live shows the previous year, I had expected these precocious adolescents to now be full of self-importance at their growing fame.<\/p>\n

How wrong I was.<\/p>\n

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Singer Liam Payne with his American influencer girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, 25, last year<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How Liam Payne spent his final days before tragic death in Argentina<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I arrived to find five handsome young men politely waiting to greet me, but one of them stood out thanks to his cute curly hair and his charming, talkative manner.<\/p>\n

No, not Harry Styles \u2013 the only ex-1D member who has\u00a0gone on to forge a successful, long-term solo career<\/span>\u00a0\u2013 but Liam Payne. Dressed down in a navy hoodie and jeans, Liam wrapped me in a warm hug and excitedly introduced me to his bandmates \u2013 Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik \u2013 in his strong Wolverhampton accent.<\/p>\n

Looking younger than his 18 years, Liam told me how badly he was missing his beloved mum Karen\u2019s cooking \u2013 so much so that he had resorted to eating chicken dippers warmed up in the microwave.<\/p>\n

Living as he was out of suitcases in hotels, he asked me for ironing tips as he had yet to learn how to use one \u2013 and said he still spent much of his free time playing Nintendo.<\/p>\n

He admitted that he had practised putting his hands behind his back and trying to sing like his hero Liam Gallagher, the snarling Oasis frontman. \u2018I probably looked a bit stupid though,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

He also spoke lovingly about West Bromwich Albion, the football team he had supported since he was a young boy \u2013 though he regretted that he no longer had time to cheer them on in person.<\/p>\n

As for girls, Liam told me he preferred shy and quiet ones, although he revealed he\u2019d fallen in love with X Factor\u2019s 2006 winner Leona Lewis, while he found singer Tulisa Contostavlos \u2018really, really hot\u2019.<\/p>\n

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The pair in a selfie posted on Liam’s Snapchat account shortly before his death<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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‘I’m not really here’: Signs Liam Payne was battling mental health<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Overall, he struck me as an innocent abroad \u2013 a child, really \u2013 who seemed too vulnerable a soul to last long in the cut-throat music world.<\/p>\n

As the years passed, I met Liam many times at industry events and in chance encounters \u2013 and I never shook that worrying sense that he was, in some ways, a lost little boy.<\/p>\n

I could never have known, of course, that just 13 years after our first interview, Liam would perish in the most terrible circumstances \u2013 following a long spell of torment, scandal and drink and drug abuse.<\/p>\n

His descent into addiction had been playing out, in public and in private, for years \u2013 worsened by his fragile emotional state.<\/p>\n

Many had tried to help him quit the substances that were destroying his life, but to no avail: following his death in Buenos Aires\u2019s five-star CasaSur hotel on Wednesday evening, what appeared to be cocaine and heroin paraphernalia were found in his wrecked suite, with its smashed TV and half-drunk flutes of champagne.<\/p>\n

It was a squalid end for one of the most famous young men in the world, so adored by \u2018Directioners\u2019 that he insisted he couldn\u2019t leave his hotel without a large security detail (although it\u2019s worth pointing out that other former bandmates, including the global megastar Styles, often travel without huge entourages).<\/p>\n

So where did it all go wrong for him \u2013 and how did that smiling boy I met all those years ago, rough around the edges as he was, come to such a terrible end?<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that he struggled, even more than his bandmates, with that explosive early fame and notoriety.<\/p>\n

In a candid moment at 2014\u2019s Brit Awards, Liam told me how difficult he found it to be unable to blend into a crowd. The band\u2019s relentless schedule had taken its toll on him, as had the long months away from home.<\/p>\n

He often wished, one of his friends later told me, that he had gone to university like many of his schoolmates.<\/p>\n

Of course, Liam came to enjoy a lifestyle unimaginable to his old contemporaries at St Peter\u2019s Collegiate, his Church of England secondary school in Wolverhampton.<\/p>\n

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Katie Hind meets One Direction soon after their creation, with Liam Payne second from right<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Despite his insatiable appetite for drugs, his large property portfolio, his endless jaunts on private jets, taste for high fashion and luxury hotel stays, his bank balance was still thought to be in the millions when he died.<\/p>\n

For all his fears that he had peaked so young, he still had decades ahead of him \u2013 and ample time to grow into the contented father to Bear, his son with Girls Aloud star Cheryl Tweedy, his friends and family longed for him to become.<\/p>\n

But I can reveal that behind that smiling, cherubic face, Liam had suffered serious trauma in his childhood: a shadow from which he felt he could never escape and whose full details the Mail has chosen not to publish.<\/p>\n

One friend told me: \u2018Before he even began his showbiz career, he had demons from his formative years. He struggled with that and never quite got over it. He was in a band with four other guys, he could get any girl he wanted and he was earning millions \u2013 but he struggled to enjoy any of it.\u2019<\/p>\n

I can vouch for that: of all the 1D members, Liam seemed by far the most uncomfortable with his fame and fortune.<\/p>\n

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2015: Liam Payne hugs One Direction bandmates after last performance<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This is the last-known image of Liam Payne alive before his fatal fall. Fans have noted his apparent decline in recent years<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Liam Payne gives Snapchat followers a home tour a month before death<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I would see him most years at the Brits, where at first he would dash over to say hello, often reminding me that he had enjoyed me asking him \u2018fun questions\u2019 at our first interview.<\/p>\n

Yet as time went on, his chaotic living began to catch up with him, and his manner became ever more unpredictable.<\/p>\n

In February 2013, at a Brit Awards afterparty organised by his music label at the upmarket Arts Club in Mayfair, I saw him drunkenly dancing with his bandmates \u2013 by far the most bleary-eyed of them.<\/p>\n

That December, I bumped into him in the Kurt Geiger shoe shop in Canary Wharf, east London, where he was buying his then girlfriend Sophia Smith \u2013 a former school sweetheart \u2013 a pair of boots for Christmas.<\/p>\n

Gone was his carefree demeanour of just two years earlier, he now seemed strikingly shy. He told me he had bought a penthouse flat in the Docklands, and at my insistence, he posed for a picture with me before dashing off.<\/p>\n

Not long before, Liam had completed a gruelling world tour with 1D: by then one of the most successful pop groups in history, selling some 70 million records under Cowell\u2019s watchful eye.<\/p>\n

During 2013\u2019s Take Me Home tour, the band performed an average of a concert every two days, completing 124 dates between February and November. That, I\u2019m told, put unbearable pressure on Liam, who would often say that he \u2018just wanted to be normal\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Liam was just 14 when he made his first X Factor appearance, winking at then-24-year-old Cheryl Tweedy. Here he is pictured two years later during rehearsals in 2010<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How Liam Payne first crossed paths with Cheryl when he was 14<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Of course, the fame came with perks \u2013 women chief among them. Liam\u2019s best-known romance was with Cheryl, who was ten years his senior, which had begun in 2016\u00a0following her split from her French husband Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini<\/span>.<\/p>\n

They quickly became the most talked-about couple in showbiz \u2013and only six months after they were confirmed to be an item, Cheryl revealed she was expecting their baby.<\/p>\n

For Liam, however, the pregnancy was a huge shock: he was, he allegedly told friends, not ready to become a dad.<\/p>\n

With 1D having gone on \u2018permanent hiatus\u2019 in 2016, he was trying to launch his solo career, and becoming a father \u2013 especially to a woman a decade older than him \u2013was not part of his plans.<\/p>\n

He told friends that he felt like Cheryl, who was 33 when Bear was born, had\u00a0used him<\/span>\u00a0so she could have a baby.<\/p>\n

When Bear, now seven, was born in 2017, Cheryl grew increasingly fed up that she was\u00a0stuck at home with the baby<\/span>\u00a0while Liam was away jet-setting.<\/p>\n

\u2018Liam was flying around the world promoting his music,\u2019 said a friend. \u2018He was in the zone Cheryl had been in ten years before with Girls Aloud. It led to some furious rows.<\/p>\n

\u2018He began using private jets so he could get home quicker, but it wasn\u2019t enough. Cheryl\u00a0wanted a proper family unit and Liam just could not give it to her.<\/span>\u00a0Things got really bad and tempestuous. Liam was a young lad in his early 20s and he just wasn\u2019t ready for it all.\u2019<\/p>\n

Inevitably, they split up \u2013\u00a0giving Liam even more time to \u2018go off the rails\u2019,<\/span>\u00a0as one former associate of the star describes it.<\/p>\n

Even when they were\u00a0co-parenting<\/span>, Cheryl desperately hoped that Liam and Bear would develop a strong father-son bond, despite Liam\u2019s addiction issues.<\/p>\n

\u2018Cheryl knew what a state he was in,\u2019 says a source. \u2018She wished she could make it better.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Adorable chat between Liam Payne and son Bear on Father’s Day 2021<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Liam and Cheryl started a relationship together in 2016, having baby boy Bear – now seven<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

And she wasn\u2019t alone in that wish: as Liam turned from being a cheerful teenager into a tormented, angry young man, many of those closest to him tried unsuccessfully to rescue him.<\/p>\n

He was dropped by more than one of his managers due to his erratic behaviour and his failure to turn up to work engagements.<\/p>\n

In September 2017, Cheryl, Liam and Bear\u00a0went on a luxury holiday to Majorca: a birthday treat for Liam.<\/span>\u00a0But he injured himself while drunk.<\/p>\n

As the years went on, he only got worse.<\/p>\n

In 2022, a gurning Liam appeared to be high on drugs at a post-Oscars party in Hollywood. In footage that went viral for all the wrong reasons, he replaced his Wolverhampton twang with a bizarre Los Angeles accent.<\/p>\n

One friend of Liam\u2019s called me in horror to share their fears that he \u2018really wasn\u2019t OK\u2019. Last year, Liam moved to a sprawling mansion near the Buckinghamshire town of Chalfont St Giles to be further away from the temptations of London and closer to Bear, who lived nearby with Cheryl.<\/p>\n

However, neighbours tell me that he brought his problems with him. They would often spot him coming home in the early hours in chauffeur-driven cars, often with women in tow.<\/p>\n

While I\u2019m told he tried to see Bear regularly, his unpredictable lifestyle frequently made this impossible. Instead, Cheryl was largely left to bring up the little boy alone with the help of her mother Joan.<\/p>\n

Liam\u2019s new home was also close to a woman who some describe as his fairy godmother \u2013 the Olympic heptathlon gold medallist Denise Lewis.<\/p>\n

Her husband Steve Finan worked with Liam for several years and the couple were at his side through some of his most difficult times \u2013 including his fall-out with Cheryl.<\/p>\n

He would often stay at their home as they battled to keep him sober.<\/p>\n

\u2018Liam adored Denise,\u2019 says a source. \u2018She mothered him and really tried to support him.\u2019<\/p>\n

Yet in recent months, his life was clearly spiralling out of control. His on-off girlfriend, Maya Henry, 23, had recently hired lawyers to send a \u2018cease and desist\u2019 letter to the star, accusing him of repeatedly contacting her and her loved ones.<\/p>\n

Liam\u2019s friends insisted he was angry and upset at her, adding that her behaviour was due to her wanting to publicise her new book.<\/p>\n

And only last week, I\u2019m told Liam had a huge row with his manager over his forthcoming album, whose release \u2013 to Liam\u2019s fury \u2013 had been delayed because it was deemed \u2018too poppy\u2019.<\/p>\n

A source said: \u2018There was a blazing row and the album was put back again. The single from it had flopped and there were concerns. Liam desperately wanted that album to come out: despite everything, he thought of himself as a musician.\u2019<\/p>\n

To make matters even worse, just a few days ago Liam\u2019s record label dropped him.<\/p>\n

Another source said: \u2018People begged him to get help and suggested that he went to Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings, but he wouldn\u2019t take them up on it.\u2019<\/p>\n

His most recent girlfriend was Texan model Katie Cassidy, whom he thought might have been The One. She too had tried to help him, but left Argentina to return to the US two days before he died.<\/p>\n

\u2018Lots of people cared for Liam,\u2019 said a source. \u2018He had so much love around him.\u2019<\/p>\n

Yet all the love in the world was not enough to rescue this desperately unhappy young man, who for all his fame and fortune could never escape the demons that haunted him from his lost, tormented youth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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