One Direction Fans Struggle With ‘Complicated Feelings’ While Grieving Liam Payne: ‘I Wished for Him to Get Better and Make Amends’

variety.com:

Ellise Shafer When the news broke on Oct. 16 that former One Direction member Liam Payne had died, the overwhelming reaction — from both casual observers and longtime fans of the multiplatinum-selling boy band — was disbelief.

The circumstances around Payne’s death were even more shocking: Just 31 years old, the singer fell from a third-floor balcony at a Buenos Aires hotel after police were called regarding “an aggressive man who could be under the effects of drugs and alcohol,” local authorities said. “For the first 20 minutes, I didn’t believe it at all,” says 21-year-old Lara Pinto, a political science student in Belgium who joined X as a young teenager to start a One Direction fan account. “I was like, ‘No, this is a hoax — there’s no way.’” Floortje Jansen, 26, a fan from the Netherlands who has had an X profile dedicated to the band since she was 13, says her “stomach dropped” when she saw the news. “I literally woke up my parents and started crying — I felt like a 16-year-old,” she says. “It broke something in me that I think will never, ever heal completely.” Abby Pachai, a 28-year-old from Ontario, Canada, was a hardcore member of the fandom as a teen and immediately logged on to X to see what her old friends were saying. “The more I read, the more I started thinking about the state that Liam’s been in recently,” she said, referring to reports of Payne’s mental health and substance abuse issues, “and it did start to make sense.” It’s no secret that Payne grappled with addiction during his years with One Direction and following the band’s breakup in 2016.