One Direction<\/a> star was heartbroken when his former bandmate died aged 31 in October 2024 after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires just two weeks after attending one of Niall’s gigs in the Argentinian capital city.<\/p>\nAppearing on the Tommy Tiernan Show, he admitted: “You start asking yourself: What could I have done? Should I have looked into things more? Should I have spoken to other people? You go through all of that.”<\/p>\n
Niall noted he is yet to “fully” process his friend’s tragic death, which has been partially attributed to Payne’s struggles with substance abuse.<\/p>\n
Niall admitted “shock was definitely the first thing”, but recalled how “great” it was to see Payne just two weeks before he died.<\/p>\n
\nHe said: “It was pure shock. I knew he\u2019d had a couple of issues, but I hadn\u2019t been around him as much in recent years, so I didn\u2019t realise the extent of it.<\/p>\n
\n“I knew something was going on, but not how deep it was.”<\/p>\n
\nNiall noted “it\u2019s hard to take in”, particularly given Payne’s personal struggles.<\/p>\n
\nHe said: “Sometimes, when someone self-destructs, you can look back and recognise patterns.<\/p>\n
\n“That\u2019s maybe why the shock was so intense\u2014even if, in some way, the surprise wasn\u2019t quite as big…<\/p>\n
\n“Still, nothing prepares you for looking down at your phone and finding out like that. Then, stupidly, I turned on the news \u2014 Sky News, CNN, BBC, RTE \u2014and suddenly the whole world was talking about it. It was the biggest story everywhere…<\/p>\n
\n“I even saw myself in pictures with him on the news. That felt very strange\u2014seeing those images while trying to process everything…”<\/p>\n
\nNiall explained how it was difficult seeing the story on the news, and he forced himself to detach from the outside noise in the lead-up to the funeral.<\/p>\n
\nHe added: “After I made the mistake of turning [the news] on that first time, I decided I couldn\u2019t keep watching. At first it was fans, people we\u2019d worked with, interviews\u2014things like that…<\/p>\n
\n“But I just thought, I can\u2019t do this. I\u2019ve got a funeral to go to. I have my own grief to deal with. I can\u2019t be worrying about what people are going to say next…<\/p>\n
\n“All of that noise became irrelevant to me. I want to hold on to my own memories of him, rather than focus on the negativity…<\/p>\n
\n“I think it\u2019s because I haven\u2019t fully processed it yet. It\u2019s a strange thing\u2014to be in your thirties and realise that someone just a couple of weeks older than you can be here one day and gone the next.”<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"6 April 2026 Niall Horan has wondered if he could have done “more” for Liam Payne before his death. Niall Horan is still struggling with the death of Liam Payne The One Direction star was heartbroken when his former bandmate died aged 31 in October 2024 after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":232909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1127,204,750],"class_list":{"0":"post-232908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-liam-payne","9":"tag-niall-horan","10":"tag-one-direction"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}