One Direction‘s Liam Payne died today (Oct. 16) after falling three floors from the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires, according to media reports. He was 31. The circumstances of the incident are still being investigated.
The artist was born in 1993 in Wolverhampton, England, and first saw the spotlight after being cut from the music competition show The X Factor in 2008. Two years later, he went back on the show and was teamed with Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik in a proto version of One Direction, which came in third and scored a record deal with Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment.
One Direction quickly became a worldwide phenomenon and eventually became the first band to ever debut at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 with each of their first four albums. They toured stadiums globally, with their 2014 outing becoming the biggest ever for a vocal group.
One Direction went on hiatus in early 2016 as its members pursued solo projects, with Payne releasing his Ed Sheeran-written debut single, “Strip That Down,” the following year. His only full-length album, LP1, arrived in 2019; a new single, “Teardrops,” was released in March.
This is a developing story.