Long before he was an actual father, Payne was jokingly referred to as “Daddy Direction” by fans and his bandmates — Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik — a label he took seriously, despite being in his teens.
“When I was born I was effectively dead,” Payne wrote in One Direction’s 2011 biography Dare to Dream — Life as One Direction.
Liam Payne wanted to be a singer so badly that he’d already been through various stages of The X Factor before the other boys even made their first audition.
One Direction, the boyband Payne was selected for, aged 16, while appearing on The X Factor, was built on strict roles.
While Payne’s stratospheric rise to boy band fame may have looked like a dream come true, the star said in 2023 that being thrust in the limelight at such a young age “left scars” on him.
