Scandals, drugs, deaths: how the fates of One Direction members turned out
On the night of October 17, it became known that 31-year-old Liam Payne, one of the five members of the disbanded group One Direction, had died. The tragedy occurred in Argentina, where Liam had originally flown to see his ex-bandmate Niall Horan perform. We figured out what the former soloists of the boy band are doing now and how their careers developed after the group ceased to exist.
The Essentials of One Direction
The group was formed in 2010 from participants of the British TV show X Factor. The soloists were Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan, all of whom were 16-18 years old at the time. Incidentally, a completely different participant won the show, but everyone will remember the seventh season of the project for the formation of one of the most commercially successful boy bands in its entire history.
One Direction signed a contract with producer Simon Cowell and topped the UK charts with their first single after the TV project. The five guys instantly gained fans' love. The media wrote about the real hysteria around the boy band, even calling this phenomenon "the new Beatlemania". In order to calm the thousands of fans of the group, police units had to be called in.
Full stadiums around the world, more than 200 music awards, billions of track streams: the rise was meteoric, but the soloists couldn’t stay together for long. In 2015, Zayn Malik left the band, and a year later it was announced that One Direction were taking a break. In fact, 2016 became the year the group broke up, because since then the soloists have never gotten together again.
Liam Payne
Like his other former colleagues, Liam released solo tracks shortly after the end of One Direction. The debut single Strip That Down entered the top five hits in the UK, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. Payne recorded the song For You with Rita Ora for the sequel to 50 Shades of Grey, and collaborated with rapper French Montana. He released a solo album, after which he announced that he was working on a second one, but fans never got the release. In 2023, Liam paused work on the album and canceled his tour when he was hospitalized with a kidney infection.
In the same 2023, the artist confessed to fans that he was undergoing treatment for addictions because he "stopped recognizing himself." By that time, as Liam said, he had not used anything for six months.
According to the singer, he became addicted to illegal substances and alcohol at the peak of One Direction's popularity. As he said, the time spent in the group was "the best time of my life", but not without "heavy and toxic moments". The singer also mentioned his addiction to antidepressants and suicidal thoughts that arose every now and then.
His personal life has also seen sharp ups and downs. In 2016, Liam began an affair with singer Cheryl Cole, who is 10 years older than him. They had a son, but in 2018, the artists broke up. Both said that the breakup was peaceful. The musician later admitted that the birth of a child did not have the best effect on the relationship within the couple, but said that he was happy that everything turned out this way, and continued to actively participate in raising his son.
Liam's relationship with model Maya Henry ended dramatically: the girl broke up with the singer because of his infidelity, and then published a book, which many considered to be a story about her real experience with Payne. The heroine of the book dated a rock musician who abused her. After the book was published, Liam's relatives, as well as his fans, criticized Maya and assumed that if something happened to the artist, it would be on her conscience. Shortly before Payne's death, Maya filed a lawsuit against him, accusing him of stalking her after the breakup. The girl reported that her ex-fiancé called her from different numbers and sent emails, and also persistently tried to contact her mother and friends.
Liam's last romance was with travel blogger Kate Cassidy. They started dating in 2022, and it was Kate who was with the singer in Argentina, where he arrived in early October. Both shared photos and videos from the trip: Payne published his last shots shortly before his death. Cassidy left Argentina a few days before the incident. What happened on the night of the tragedy is up for investigation. It is already known that Liam took drugs and smashed the hotel room. He died after falling out of a third-floor window.
Zayn Malik
The lead singer, the first to leave One Direction, immediately began to confidently build a solo career, and at first it looked very impressive. The debut album Pillowtalk, released after leaving the group, started straight from the first line of the hit parade, as did the single of the same name. Zayn turned out to be the first British singer whose debut simultaneously soared to the first place in both the UK and the States.
He has released four solo albums and has collaborated with a wide range of stars, including tracks with Sia, Nicki Minaj, Ty Dolla $ign, and Taylor Swift. With the latter, Zayn recorded the song I Don't Wanna Live Forever, which was included in the soundtrack to Fifty Shades of Grey. He also sang a new version of the classic Disney soundtrack A Whole New World for the film Aladdin. Another achievement: Zayn is the only artist to have won the Billboard award for Best Debut Artist of the Year twice (in 2013 with a group and in 2017 as a solo artist).
During the years of One Direction's popularity, Malik was in a relationship with singer Perrie Edwards. Since 2015, he has been dating Gigi Hadid, who starred in his Pillowtalk video, posed with him for the cover of Vogue and a Versace ad. Five years after the start of their relationship, the couple had a daughter.
It all came to an end in 2021, when Zayn was accused of assaulting Gigi's mother Yolanda Hadid. It turned out that the singer had a huge fight with his potential mother-in-law and physically assaulted her. Malik pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 360 days of probation, required to take an anger management course, and was banned from contacting Yolanda.
According to one version, Zayn's addiction to illegal drugs is to blame: according to insiders, the artist becomes very aggressive in an altered state of consciousness. If you believe the tabloids, this also led to conflicts within One Direction. His addiction was no secret even then: in 2014, Malik and his bandmate Louis Tomlinson themselves said that they used drugs in a video that appeared online. This caused indignation among the parents of the band's young fans.
Zayn admits to struggling with mental health issues: he once cancelled a show at Wembley Stadium due to panic attacks. The artist also spoke about his tendency towards eating disorders, which he developed while working in the band, when his entire life was under the strict control of management.
The artist periodically gets into new scandals. This year, for example, his ex-girlfriend told how he forced her to have sex with a threesome, and when she refused, he became furious.
Louis Tomlinson
Louis Tomlinson also tours a lot, and during his solo career he also released two solo albums and several singles. After the breakup of One Direction, as the artist himself admitted, he experienced the darkest period in his life.
In just a couple of years, the singer lost two close people. At the end of 2016, his mother died of leukemia, aged just 43. In addition to Louis, she had six other children, Louis being the eldest. The youngest, twins Doris and Ernest, were two years old at the time. Louis and his sister Lottie tried to surround their younger siblings with care at the time.
In 2019, another tragedy occurred: Tomlinson's sister, model and influencer Felicite, died of a drug overdose. She was only 18 years old. The girl's sister said that she was never able to recover from the loss of her mother.
Louis himself became a father at the age of 25: stylist Briana Jungwerth gave birth to his son. It is not known exactly what is happening in the singer's personal life now, he does not like to talk about it. Every now and then there are rumors that he is back in a relationship with his ex-girlfriend Eleanor Calder, whom he started dating when he was still in One Direction.
Harry Styles
Harry Styles was a fan favorite during the One Direction era, and has achieved fantastic heights in his solo career. Suffice it to say that the artist was named "the new King of Pop" by Rolling Stone magazine (much to the outrage of Michael Jackson fans).
Harry's debut solo single Sign of the Times was named the best song of 2017 by the publication; the track soared to the top of the UK national charts and entered the top five of the American Billboard.
That same year, Styles made his film debut, and right away with Christopher Nolan. His role in the war drama Dunkirk was met with quite a warm welcome from critics, and since then the singer has starred in several more films, including the lead role in Olivia Wilde's acclaimed drama Don't Worry, Darling.
In the 2020s, Harry cemented his status as one of the world's top hitmakers, recording tracks such as As It Was, Watermelon Sugar, Adore You and others. The songs brought the musician numerous awards, including two Grammy statuettes and four Brit Awards.
Styles also has the status of a fashion icon: in recent years, almost no rating of stylish men, be it the choice of GQ or Vogue, could do without him. He released a capsule collection for Gucci with Alessandro Michele, and the Adidas brand renamed one of the sneaker models in his honor, which the artist often wore on tour.
Styles' fortune has grown every year and is now estimated at £175 million (around €210 million). He is recognised as the second richest musician under 40 in England after Ed Sheeran.
Harry's list of famous lovers is also the most extensive of all the former members of One Direction. The singer has had relationships of varying degrees of seriousness with Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner, Sara Sampaio, Camille Rowe, and this is far from a complete list. According to unconfirmed information, Styles even dated Nicole Scherzinger, who was on the jury of the very same X Factor show that formed the group.
Harry's most high-profile recent romance is with Olivia Wilde. She allegedly left her children's father Jason Sudeikis for him - with a scandal, since Sudeikis took the breakup extremely painfully and began suing his ex-wife for custody of the children. They met on the set of the film "Don't Worry, Darling", where Wilde was the director. After two years of dating, according to the media, Harry and Olivia broke up peacefully. But then the relationship deteriorated - when Olivia's friend Emily Ratajkowski started an affair with Harry. After that, they wrote about Styles' affair with actress Taylor Russell, which lasted about a year.
Niall Horan
Soon after the breakup of One Direction, Horan began releasing solo singles, which, although they did not become mega-hits, still made a good name for themselves in the UK and US charts. The singer recorded three albums, co-founded a golf management company, and last year joined the celebrity mentors of the show The Voice. Now, judging by his social networks, he is actively touring the world and lives between Los Angeles and London.
Niall has not been involved in any major scandals, except for one time when he called female fans names at the airport, which outraged many. He later apologized for his behavior on Twitter, explaining that it was not an insult, but simply a playful conversation between him and the fans.
As for his personal life, the singer had a relationship with actress Hailee Steinfeld, and even during the One Direction days he was rumored to have had an affair with Selena Gomez.