“When we finished [the TV talent show The X Factor], we thought something might happen, but never anything like this,” said Liam Payne in 2012. “This” was the mammoth presence of One Direction, the boyband that dominated the charts, and the hearts of Directioners – their fan army – from 2010 until 2016.
Payne, who has died aged 31 after falling from a hotel balcony, was initially deemed “the sensible one” by the group’s management, entrusted with keeping his bandmates, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Niall Horan, in check. Responsible by nature, Payne went along with it until he discovered that being Daddy Direction, as he was known, was less appealing than being a teenage boy.
