A year on, Louis Tomlinson speaks out about Liam Payne’s tragic death for the first time

In a new interview, Louis Tomlinson has opened up about handling grief after Liam Payne’s death for the first time, especially around the 15th anniversary of One Direction earlier this year.

Since Liam Payne tragically passed away last October, the One Direction members have been private about how it has affected them. Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik all released Instagram statements at the time, but rarely talk about him outside of this.

Louis finally shared with Rolling Stone how he’s been processing the grief, while still trying to celebrate One Direction’s accomplishments.

via Instagram

“It was really uncomfortable, actually, the 15th anniversary, because the feeling to celebrate is as important, if not more important than ever, on behalf of Liam,” Louis said.

“You know, there’s still a level in my head [where it feels] unjust and frustrating that he’s not with us anymore. So, it just brought up those feelings, although I’m still living with them anyway.”

Liam Payne died on the 16th of October while on holiday in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after falling off a balcony. At the time, Louis released a statement, where he shared that he felt “devastated” and said he had “lost a brother”.

He explained in more detail how the passing of his bandmate made him feel.

“It was really, really, impossibly difficult for me to deal with losing Liam,” Louis said. “Naively, I thought that because at this point, I’m relatively well versed in grief for my age, that it might soften the blow. [That was] super-naive. It’s very different. I’ve never lost a friend before.”

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via ITV

At the time of Liam’s passing, a lot of memes were going around poking fun at him after his viral interview with Logan Paul, where he said Simon “worked around” him to make the band. Louis defended Liam’s claim, saying he was a core member of the group.

“We were all just so amateur, but he was already where he needed to be by the time he did his first audition,” he said, referring to Liam’s 2011 X Factor solo audition. “None of us would have admitted it at the time, because you have a lot of pride as a young lad, but we all looked up to him like that.”

He had one thing he wanted to tell the world about Liam, as someone who knew him very well.

“He was just a very misunderstood person, I think, from a public perspective,” said Louis.

He added: “If there is ever any judgment on his character, I think nine times out of 10, you can reflect on that, and the reflection is that he was someone who just wanted to be liked.”

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Featured image via Instagram/TikTok