Niall Horan opened up about the death of his former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne in new interview with The Times U.K., noting that he spent time with Payne in Argentina a few weeks before he died.
Payne died on Oct. 16, 2024, after falling from the third floor of a hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was 31.
“I’m glad of that, it means my last memory of him was happy,” Horan said in the interview. “It still feels surreal. On day one I was, like, ‘Nah, it didn’t happen.’ Our friendship was a bond that was there forever even if we hadn’t seen each other for a while and it’s wild that one day, like the flick of a switch, he’s gone.”
Horan explained that although Payne’s death evokes “sadness,” he tries to reminisce on the many great memories they made together.
“When I think of Liam’s passing, there is sadness, but it also makes me laugh and smirk because of the memories we had,” Horan said. “I’ll go to places and think of something stupid in a hotel or something random that makes me laugh. We always had good fun in Australia because we were able to get out and go to the beach. Liam wasn’t too bad at surfing. I can barely swim.”
