When Liam Payne announced ‘One Direction was made around me’: Was the late pop artist the real leader of 1D?

Singer Liam Payne would have turned 32 today, but he passed away last year after falling from his third floor hotel room in Buenos Aires.

The band was formed in 2010 and went their separate ways in 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

Boy bands usually come with a short shelf life, and One Direction, or 1D, was no exception. Formed in 2010, they broke up in 2015, at the very peak of their fame. The group was brought together last year to mourn the passing away of one of their members, Liam Payne, the controversial yet widely loved boy from Wolverhampton, England. Even though the group seemingly separated on cordial terms, shots were taken from time to time, and one of those came from Liam back in 2022, when he claimed that the entire group was built around him.

Everyone has seen the X Factor audition tapes of the five young boys, and after being left to fend for themselves for a couple of years, judge Simon Cowell put them together as a group in 2010. He offered them a contract in 2010, even though they finished third in the competition that year, and for the next five years, they ruled the minds of almost every teenager in the world. During an appearance on Logan Paul’s podcast Impaulsive, Liam recalled the origin of 1D and shared how he was the epicentre of the whole thing.

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He said, “We were very put together on the show, and slowly we got better at what we did. I had already been on the show, and I got kicked off from it after making it to the top 24. Simon had dinner with me and my mother, and the manager of 1D was there. He said, ‘I am really sorry that I had to let you go, but I want you to finish your studies and then come back.’ I was really mad at Simon at first, because I knew I beat the kid that went through.” He continued the story and revealed the CM Punk-type favour that Simon owed him, which reportedly turned out to be the reason behind the inception of the group.

“I got kicked off once again, and then they picked us out. From what I heard, part of the reason why 1D was made was because of the promise Simon had made to me when he said, ‘I’ll make this work for you.’ He started with my face, and then he built the band around me. I was the honorary member of the group, and he told me that story himself. “I don’t really know how they chose the rest of them, but they were all choices,” said Liam. However, after these comments went viral, they fans of the band did not agree with this version of the story and called Liam out for making such claims.

Eventually Liam apologised for his comments and admitted in a video posted online that most of the things he said came out of frustration.

At their peak, the band was earning upwards of $100 million a year, according to Forbes. They released five studio albums, and all of them debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200, making them the first band to do so with their first five projects. Zayn left the band in 2015 because he wanted to live the life of a normal 22-year-old, and in 2016, the rest of the four stopped performing together. Even though Harry Styles is arguably the most successful as a solo artist, Liam did take his solo career by the horns and did extremely well with singles like ‘Strip That Down’ and ‘For You’.

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