Louis Tomlinson Opens Up About Missing Liam Payne on One Direction’s 15th Anniversary

Anniversaries are usually about balloons, cake, and maybe an awkward group photo where someone blinks. But for Louis Tomlinson, the 15th anniversary of One Direction wasn’t all smiles. It was the first without his late bandmate and longtime friend, Liam Payne.

“It was really uncomfortable, actually, the 15th anniversary, because the [collective] feeling to celebrate is as important, if not more important than ever, on behalf of Liam,” Tomlinson told Rolling Stone U.K.

Tomlinson admitted that while he used to get “sick of nostalgia,” this year hit differently. “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,” he said.

The singer didn’t hold back about how devastating Payne’s death was. “It was really, really, impossibly difficult for me to deal with losing Liam,” he added.

This wasn’t Tomlinson’s first time facing grief. He had already lost his mother, Johannah Deakin, to leukemia in 2016 and his younger sister, Félicité, in 2019. Still, he explained that nothing could prepare him for losing a close friend. “Naively, I thought that because at this point, I’m relatively well versed in grief for my age, that it might soften the blow. Super-naive. It’s very different. I’ve never lost a friend before.”

When thinking back on his bandmate, Tomlinson didn’t just talk about the pain of losing him—he also reflected on Payne’s importance in One Direction. He called Liam the “safest pair of hands” in the group.

“We were all just so amateur, but he was already where he needed to be by the time he did his first [X Factor] audition,” Tomlinson recalled. “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.”

Payne’s death shocked fans worldwide. He was just 31 when he fell multiple stories from a balcony at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on October 16, 2024. According to a December hearing at Buckinghamshire Coroner’s Court, the cause of death was “polytrauma,” which means multiple severe injuries affecting different organs or systems.

A toxicology report revealed Payne had traces of alcohol, cocaine, and prescription antidepressants in his system.

He left behind his son, 8-year-old Bear Grey, whom he shared with his ex, singer Cheryl.

Even through heartbreak, Tomlinson made it clear that Payne’s role in One Direction and his presence in their story will always matter. The anniversary was no longer just about celebrating chart-topping hits and sold-out stadiums—it became about honoring the memory of a friend who helped shape the band’s history.