Liam Payne's secret One Direction battle where he claims he was 'locked in room'

Liam Payne opened up about the struggles he faced within One Direction years before his tragic death in Argentina.

The 31-year-old died after falling from the third floor of a hotel overnight in Buenos Aires and a brutally honest interview with Stephen Bartlett on the Diary of a CEO podcast in 2021 has since resurfaced.

In it, Liam spoke about the realities of being in a boyband at such a young age and how the unusual environment led him to alcohol.

He explained that sometimes it felt as if the band was only let out briefly and then locked back into their hotel rooms. Liam said: “The problem we had in the band. It feels like when we were in the band the best way to secure us because of how big it got was just to lock us in our rooms and of course what’s in the room, minibar.

“So, at a certain point, I thought ‘Well I’m going to have a party for one’ and that just seemed to carry on through many years of my life’. And then you look back at how long you’ve been drinking and you think ‘Jesus Christ that’s a long time’ even for someone as young as I was. It was wild but it was the only way you could get frustration out in the day.

“I spoke to somebody about this and in child development, as a teen, the one thing you need is freedom to make choices and freedom to do stuff and it was the one thing, although we could do anything we wanted it seemed from the outside, that we were always locked in a room at night and then it would be car, hotel room stage, sing, locked. So, it was like they pulled the dust cloth off, let us out for a minute and then back underneath here.”

Liam went on to say that he didn’t really know what he was doing at the time and that even a few years after hitting fame in his mid-teens he still wasn’t sure. Liam continued: “When we were 17 I thought the security guard was in charge of me.

“That’s what it was like so I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. There’s no guidebook, they don’t give you a little DVD on the way in saying ‘Here! You’re a popstar, this is what you’ve got to do!’

“Eventually that becomes an angry person and I was because there were points when it was toxic and it was difficult. Don’t get me wrong we had the best time ever, but there were moments.”

Liam Payne’s death shocked the world when it was announced on Wednesday evening. The singer reportedly fell from the third floor of an Argentinian hotel known as Casa Sur Palermo in Buenos Aires. Before he went, Liam spoke about former bandmate Niall Horan who was playing in Brazil.

He told social media: “We're going to Argentina. One, because we have to, and two, because we want to, and three, because Niall Horan's playing down there and I think we might just go and say 'Hello'.

"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 things with the boy. No bad vibes or nothing like that, but just, we need to talk.

In a statement, local police said: “Liam James Payne, composer and guitarist, former member of the band One Direction, died today after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Palermo."