Liam Payne says staying in One Direction 'would have killed him'

16 October 2019, 16:44

"I just lived so long as this reclusive pop star who was afraid of people, who just stayed inside all the time."

It's been almost 4 years since One Direction went on hiatus and since then, we've learned quite a bit about how Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik tried to cope with being the biggest pop stars in the world.

The boys have been incredibly candid about how their years in the band affected their mental and physical wellbeing, with Zayn previously opening up about his eating disorder and Liam speaking a lot about his own personal mental health journey on his recent press tour.

READ MORE: Liam Payne admits "there's no real reason" for One Direction to still talk

Speaking on Jessie Ware's Table Manners podcast (season 8, episode 2), Liam has now explained that he believed the pressure of being in the band alongside his schedule and the way he went about his lifestyle would have "killed" him.

"We were definitely overworked. I had no personal life, I learnt nothing about myself. I remember getting to therapy and the guy was like, 'What do you like to do?'," he said on the podcast.

"I haven't got a clue. I just lived so long as this reclusive pop star who was afraid of people, who just stayed inside all the time. I needed to stop, definitely. It would have killed me."

Liam also revealed that the boys would come off stage, get "horrendously drunk", go to bed, wake up at 5pm and do it all again. He continued to explain that he spent two years after the band went on hiatus "in and out of music trying to be a person."

"I went through a real episode and, after that, I was like, right you're either gonna end up a crazy child star who dies at whatever age or you're gonna live life and actually get on with it properly."

What makes Liam's comments from the podcast even more heartbreaking is that he was seen as the leader of the band and took on a lot of the responsibility of when it came to fronting their public image. He continually kept the spirits up for the fans while he and the others were suffering personally.

Speaking to Men's Health Australia recently, Liam also said: "We had an absolute blast but there were certain parts of it where it just got a little bit toxic, it's difficult when you have the level of fame that we had in the band."