Pop star Harry Styles says he is still grappling with the death of his former One Direction bandmate and friend Liam Payne.
“I think there was a period when he passed away where I really struggled,” Styles said in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe posted Wednesday. “I have such strong feelings around my friend passing away."
Payne was 31 when he fell from a third-floor balcony on Oct. 16, 2024. His sudden death sent shock waves through the music world and plunged his fans around the world into mourning.
Styles said what happened to Payne prompted him to reassess his own life.
"It’s so difficult to lose a friend. It’s difficult to lose any friend, but it’s so difficult to lose a friend who is so like you in so many ways," he said. "It’s like, I saw someone with the kindest heart who just wanted to be great."
"It was a really important moment for me in terms of taking a look at my life and being able to say to myself, ‘OK, what do I want to do with my life? How do I want to live my life?’" Styles said. "And I think the greatest way you can honor your friends who pass away is by living your life to the fullest."
He also addressed the difficulty of trying to mourn as an artist in the public eye.
“I struggle with that a little bit even,” Styles said. “I think there was a period when he passed away where I really struggled with kind of like acknowledging how strange it is to have people kind of like own part of your grief in a way."
"I have such strong feelings around my friend passing away," he continued. "And then suddenly being, you know, like aware of there’s maybe like a desire from other people of you to convey that in some way, or it means you’re not feeling what you’re feeling or something, you know?”
Styles found himself talking about Payne while he was doing an interview to promote his new album “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally,” which goes on sale Friday.
After Payne died, Argentinian prosecutors said he had been incapacitated by “consumption of various substances” before he fell to his death.
In February 2025, an Argentine court cleared three of the five people accused of having had a hand in his death.
But the court also upheld the pretrial detention of a hotel worker and a waiter at a local restaurant who were accused of plying him with cocaine.
As of December, both men were still awaiting trial, according to British newspapers.
