Former One Direction star Liam Payne died on October 16, 2024, in Buenos Aires, Argentina after jumping off of his third-story hotel room balcony. Payne, 31, jumped leaving behind his seven-year-old son Bear, girlfriend Kate Cassidy, family, friends, and millions of fans.

The Gen-Z population worldwide was hit hard by the news of his death. There have been many tributes and memorials to Payne. Senior Melanie Larrimore says, “I don’t know how to feel, to be honest. My brain hasn’t comprehended it yet, since I liked the band so much.” Junior Joriel Dela Pena said, “It feels like a fever dream like this isn’t real.” Payne’s death shocked the world because he was so young and had a son.

Payne was found just after 5:00 p.m. local time at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel after there were multiple complaints about an angry, aggressive man staying in the room he was occupying. He was known as calm and peaceful, so wrecking the room was out of character for him. This caused the hotel to call for the police to check on Payne to make sure that his life was not in jeopardy. When the police had made it to the scene and knocked on the door, Payne had already jumped from the balcony.

The Buenos Aires police had located the body and identified Payne from his multitude of tattoos. Once he was determined dead, they covered his body and announced the news to the world. This had news stations exclusively talking about Payne and his legacy while Gen-Z and other viewers were upset and heartbroken over the loss of the popular musician.

At first, the police had assumed that he had fallen from the balcony but after they had gotten the autopsy and toxicology reports back, it showed that he had drugs and alcohol in his system. This led to the police figuring out that he had relapsed and had a manic episode that led to many objects in the hotel room being broken such as the T.V., lights, and walls.

Payne’s death caused the official One Direction Instagram page to post for the first time in four years. Along with his previous bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, and Zayn Malik, they posted about the good times and amazing memories they had together. In all the posts, they used the word “brother” to describe how they saw Payne and how close they were.

Payne’s death truly shook up the world due to his death being ruled as suicide, being so young, having relapsed before jumping, and having broken multiple objects in the hotel room before the death. The remaining boys from One Direction said goodbye in a bittersweet way by ending all of their goodbyes with “Payno” their nickname for him.