Liam Payne Says He Was Often Drunk On Stage During ‘Toxic’ One Direction Years

One Direction after Zayn Malik left the band

Liam Payne has opened up about what it was like to be in One Direction.

It’s hard to imagine what it was like to go from a normal 16-year-old to a global superstar in one of the world’s biggest bands, and Liam admits that is was at times, toxic.

The five members auditioned separately but were put into a band together at bootcamp in 2010, and the rest is history.

What the band achieved is something most X Factor auditionees could only dream of, but it was far from easy.

“When you’re doing hundreds and hundreds of [concerts] and it’s the same 22 songs at the same time every single day, even if you’re not happy, you’ve got to go out there,” he explained.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Liam Payne (@liampayne) on Apr 26, 2019 at 10:00am PDT

The singer admitted that he would perform drunk on many occasisions just to keep going.

“It’s almost like putting the Disney costume on before you step up on stage and underneath the Disney costume, I was pissed quite a lot of the time because there was no other way to get your head around what was going on. I mean it was fun. We had an absolute blast but there were certain parts of it where it just got a little bit toxic,” he told Men’s Health.

Liam, who is now 25, says that he never felt in control during his time in 1D.

Slowly but surely we are learning to be more cautious of the impact fame has on people, and Liam implies that getting out of the band helped him to look after his mental health.

“It’s difficult when you have the level of fame that we had in the band,” he said.

“There have been a lot of people in trouble with mental health that aren’t really getting the help that they need and I think that’s a bit of a problem in our industry. It’s the same shit that happens to everyone, that’s been happening since the 70’s. You know what the traps are and if you are lucky enough, like me, to be able to get out of that scenario and back into a sense of normality, then you know it’s a bit different.”

• Liam Payne
• One Direction