The deep divisions in One Direction revealed after Liam Payne’s loss of life

When they first burst onto the scene on The X Factor and became Britain’s biggest pop group since The Beatles, the bond of friendship between five fresh-faced teenagers was crucial to the legend of One Direction that fans bought into. 

However, behind closed doors, the relationship between Liam Payne, who died earlier this week aged 31, Harry Styles, 30, Niall Horan, 31, Zayn Malik, 31, and Louis Tomlinson, 32, was far more complex. 

Manufactured as a group by Simon Cowell and Nicole Scherzinger, they were put together for a mix of looks and performance ability – with no obvious thought given to how their personalities might gel. 

Fans were so obsessed by the boys being tight knit band, they even invented a strange conspiracy theory that Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles were a couple, dubbed Larry Styles.

Since their ‘hiatus’ in 2016, which became a permanent split as the group kickstarted their solo careers, all five members have spoken about the various tensions and spats that plagued their time together.

The most prominent was clearly Zayn Malik’s departure, with the singer going onto say that the group had grown sick of each other after five years of performing.

Liam Payne painted a darker picture, revealing that one of his bandmates threw him up against a wall and said that he and Louis Tomlinson hated each other so much in the early days that they almost came to blows. 

And yet, spending five years together in such intense circumstances forged a bond between them that nobody outside of the five could ever truly understand. 

In their tributes to Liam this week, his bandmates described him as a ‘brother’ and there were multiple references to being there for each other in their darkest times. 

Zayn Malik was the most frank in his post, admitting they had ‘butted heads’ at times, and describing how Liam was ‘opinionated’ and didn’t take ‘any s**t’ from people. 

His words proved that as with any tight knit family, sometimes the deepest relationship is one that veers between love and hate.   

Liam on Zayn Malik: ‘I have many reasons to dislike him’ 

By far the biggest proof that all was not well in the band, fractures between One Direction were brought to the surface when Zayn sent shockwaves around the world in March 2015 when he sensationally announced he was leaving in a bid to be a ‘normal’ then 22-year-old.

In a statement at the time, he said: ‘I am leaving because I want to be a normal 22-year-old who is able to relax and have some private time out of the spotlight.’

He then signed a solo contract to make music with RCA records, and made a sly dig at the band by claiming it was time to make ‘real music’.

He wrote on Twitter: ‘I guess I never explained why I left, it was for this moment to be given the opportunity to show you who I really am! #realmusic #RCA !!’

Almost a year after leaving the boyband, Zayn admitted: ‘I think I always wanted to go, from like the first year, really.’

Throwing more shade he added: ‘I never really wanted to be there, like in the band. 

‘I just gave it a go because it was there at the time, and when I realised the direction we were going in – mind the pun – with the music, I instantly realised it wasn’t for me, because I realised I couldn’t put any input in.’

In a 2015 interview with GQ, Liam said Zayn didn’t even say goodbye when he left the band, adding fuel to fans’ fears that his exit was far-from friendly.

‘I think with Zayn’s particular exit and the way he chose to go, we haven’t really heard from him since he left.’

‘He didn’t even say goodbye, if I am being honest. It was a really sordid scenario, from our side certainly. A bit strange. It’s difficult.’

Months after Zayn’s departure, and with more than 20 million albums sold, the remaining members of One Direction announced they were going on an ‘extended hiatus,’.

However, hopes of the band getting back together fizzled out as the years passed and there was no sign of a reunion.

In the intervening years, awkwardness with Zayn and Liam persisted.  

In 2018, Liam tweeted Niall, Louis and Harry when he saw the hashtag #OneDirectionBestFans trending worldwide – but failed to mention original member Zayn.

He wrote: ‘@NiallOfficial @Louis_Tomlinson @Harry_Styles can you believe this after so long?!!! Thank you so much you guys are unbelievable’

In 2022, Liam shed a stark light on how much relations deteriorated within One Direction, when he claimed that he once got into a physical altercation with one of his bandmates during a very heated exchange, but declined to name them. 

Speaking on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast, he said he was known for ‘not taking s**t’, but that sometimes caused tension in the group.

He shared: ‘There was one moment where there was an argument backstage and one member in particular threw me up a wall.

‘So I said to him, “If you don’t remove those hands there’s a high likelihood you’ll never use them again”.’

He went on to note his bandmate eventually removed his hands.

Earlier this month, Liam’s ex-fiancée Maya Henry, who dated the star on and off for four years, named the star who is alleged to have thrown him against a wall as Zayn Malik.

She made the revelation in response to a TikTok user who brought up the mystery and shared ‘You can’t convince me it wasn’t Louis’.

Maya, 23, said she ‘could not hold this information any more’, explaining: ‘I see this all the time, everywhere, I’ve heard this insufferable story so many times…he told me it was Zayn, so…’

On the same podcast, when asked for his thoughts about Zayn, Liam discussed a social media post by Zayn’s mode ex-girlfriend Gigi Hadid.

‘She tweeted something about get yourself a respectful man or something. That one didn’t age very well,’ he said.

The comment was interpreted by fans as a reference to an allegation made by Gigi’s mother Yolanda Hadid that Zayn had shoved her into a dresser and called her a ‘f***ing Dutch sl*t’.

In the lengthy rant, Liam said that in spite of his ‘dislike’ of Zayn, he tried to be empathetic because of the Bradford-born singer’s upbringing.  

He said: ‘There’s many reasons why I dislike Zayn and there’s many reasons why I’ll always, always be on his side.

‘If I had had to go through what he went through, through his growth and whatever else. You know are your parents very supportive?

‘My parents are overly supportive to the point where it’s annoying at times and they don’t even mind me saying that. And Zayn had a different upbringing in that sense.’

He continued: ‘You can always look at the man for where he is and say, ‘Oh, yeah, whatever that guy’s a d**k.’ Right?

‘But at the end of the day, once you understand what he’s been through to get to that point, and also whether or not he even wanted to be there…’I’m so misunderstood by myself more than anyone, like I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m here. It’s like, I can’t sit here and d**k on him because of whatever.

Although he appeared to claim he had sympathy with Zayn and cared for the ex-One Direction member, he received enormous backlash from fans over his comments.

In July 2023, Liam apologised to Zayn for discussing him on the podcast in a video he posted to YouTube after spending 100 days in rehab at a Louisiana facility. 

Sharing that he was six months sober, Liam posted to his YouTube channel with the tag: ‘I’m back.’ 

In the video, he admitted to removing himself from the public eye for his mental wellbeing, saying: ‘I kind of became somebody who I didn’t really recognise anymore. And I’m sure you guys didn’t either. I was in bad shape up until that point and I was really happy to kind of put a stopper to life and work.’

In the eight-minute video, Liam addressed the comments he’d made about Zayn in the podcast.

‘I think for me, a lot of what I said just came from the wrong place,’ Liam remarked. ‘I was so angry at what was going on around me that instead of taking a look inwards I decided to take it outwards. I want to apologise for that.’ 

He seemed to suggest that he’d since patched things up with Zayn, saying that all his One Direction bandmates had supported him during his rehab stint.  

‘The rest of the boys have really stuck by me,’ he proclaimed. ‘When I needed them most they kind of came to my rescue, even Zayn as well.’

Before his death, Liam appeared to be on good terms with Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan, and he’d also rekindled a relationship with Harry Styles after not speaking for several years.

His relationship with Zayn also appeared to be on a positive trajectory when Liam commented on Zayn’s Instagram post teasing new music in June 2023, saying: ‘This sounds big already’.

Zayn replied, saying: ‘Appreciate it bro, thanks for the love.’

His tragic death has cut short their time to fully rebuild their friendship, as Zayn himself so poingnantly put it in his tribute to Liam when he said he’d assumed they would have ‘so many more conversations’ in the future. 

In July 2023, Zayn finally opened up on the ‘selfish’ reason he decided to quit One Direction during a candid interview.

He also admitted that the group grew ‘sick of each other’ after being together daily for five years. 

Liam on Louis Tomlinson: ‘We absolutely hated each other’

In 2019, Liam admitted that he and Louis ‘hated’ each other when One Direction was first formed. 

‘When we were in the band it kind of felt like, because he was the oldest and because I’d been singing for quite a bit of time we both got put in a weird position,’ he said. 

‘He was wanting to be the leader and I was doing my thing and wanted to.

‘So at first we didn’t get on at all. We absolutely hated each other, it was so funny. Really bad. We hid it well.’ 

Appearing on Logan Paul’s podcast, Liam repeated his story of not getting on with Louis in the band, referring to Tomlinson as ‘rowdy’.

‘Louis was wild. And he wanted to be wild. That’s his spirit,’ Liam said. ‘He’s my best mate now but in the band we hated each other. 

‘Like, come to blows hate each other, it was close.’ 

This prompted fan speculation that it was Louis who had thrown Payne against a wall, but according to Liam’s ex-fiancee Maya Henry it ws actually Zayn.  

The pair grew close after the band split up, and  Liam made an appearance at Louis’ documentary screening for All Of Those Voices in March 2023, exploring Tomlinson’s journey from being a member of pop boyband One Direction to forging his own solo career. 

He publicly defended Liam amid the backlash for his comments about Zayn on the Logan Paul podcast, saying that being in the public eye is ‘mentally very f***ing challenging at times’. 

Louis claimed that Logan Paul ‘knew exactly what he was doing’ by riling Liam up and the ‘buttons he was pressing’ to get a reaction. 

‘That’s what I took away from it. It just felt disrespectful. And they got so much out of it, as if he ain’t got enough already. I f***ing hate them Paul brothers. It just felt disrespectful, I’ll say.’

Afterwards, Liam wrote on Instagram: ‘Seeing the world through your eyes last night was the most beautiful thing to experience.

‘I’m so thankful to have you in my life mate I feel so lucky and I know you know this but you were part of a small group of people that literally saved my life.

‘You dragged me out of something so dark I’ve never shared it. But your approach is something I admire and aspire to so I can one day do the same.’ 

Liam on Harry Styles: ‘We just don’t have anything in common’

Yet Liam Payne has very candidly revealed that he wouldn’t even known what to say to his former band mate Harry Styles now, due to how different they’ve become.

Speaking during a 2019 interview with The Face magazine, Liam admitted that he’d drigted apart from Harry amid his transformation into a solo artist.

He said: ‘There’s so much mystery around who he’s become. I was looking at some pictures of him the other day, and I just thought: “I don’t know what more I’d say to him other than, ‘Hello’ and ‘How are you?”.

‘I mean, look at the stuff I put out, and the stuff Harry puts out. Polar opposite. I’m like the antichrist version of what Harry is.’ 

Speaking to Equire that same year, he indicated that he’d never been that close with Harry because they didn’t properly know each other. 

‘I just didn’t know anything about him. And that’s not his fault or my fault, it’s just the way that that laid out, when you’ve been put in that room together and then exposed to this whizz-bang of fame.’

Clarifying that they would speak sometimes and share a joke, he said that it was more a case of not spending time together one on one.

‘It was not like I’d see him on the weekend, that we’d go out or anything together. Because we just don’t have anything in common,’ he said. 

‘I don’t have nothing against the boy, I think he’s a beautiful beautiful person, he’s a very lovely person.’

Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast in 2021, he gave a warmer assessment of their relationship, saying his bandmate had checked in to see how he was doing amid his struggles with drugs and alcohol. 

‘I had a lovely phone call from Harry the other day. He was checking in on me,’ he said. ‘It’s almost as if some people have got a sixth sense about when you’re going through something and want to check-in.

“He’s very much like that. He’s a lovely, lovely boy. I love him to pieces.’

Liam on Niall Horan: ‘We need to talk’

‘I feel like I know where I stand with Niall,’ he told The Face magazine. 

Liam recently reunited with Niall, as he attended his former bandmate’s concert in Argentina with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy.

In one backstage snap, Liam and the Irish singer, 31, seemed in high spirits as they posed for a selfie together and Liam captioned the snap with: ‘Reunited’.

The late One Direction star also showed his support for his pal as he shared several videos and snaps of him performing on stage to thousands of fans.

He captioned them with: ‘So happy I got to see Niall in concert (love heart emoji).’

A source told Dailymail.com: ‘When Liam attended Niall’s show earlier this month, he really wanted to just tell him he was proud of him, and it was genuine.’

The source added the two of them had the chance to some spend time together, and ‘at the end there was nothing but love between them.’

‘Niall was so grateful for him coming to support him and his music,’ they added.

‘Their bond was unbreakable at the end and their friendship ended on a good note, so to speak.’

Ahead of his trip to Argentina, Liam took to social media, hinting at some unresolved business with Niall. 

‘I think we might just go to say hello,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while since me and Niall have spoken. We’ve got a lot to talk about. And I would like to square up a couple of things up with the boy.

‘No bad vibes or anything like that. But just … we need to talk.’