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25-year-old singer and former One Direction member Liam Payne recently opened up about his struggles to cope at times during the boyband’s global fame and that he turned to alcohol.
In a candid interview with Men’s Health Australia for the July 2019 cover, Liam revealed he still struggles with feeling in control and believes more mental healthcare is needed for performers.
“When you’re doing hundreds and hundreds of concerts and it’s the same 22 songs at the same time every single day, even if you’re not happy, you’ve got to go out there,” he said.
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Liam continued, “It’s almost like putting the Disney costume on before you step up on stage and underneath the Disney costume I was pissed quite a lot of the time because there was no other way to get your head around what was going on, I mean it was fun. We had an absolute blast but there were certain parts of it where it just got a little bit toxic, it’s difficult when you have the level of fame that we had in the band.”
He added he was “lucky to be able to get out of that scenario and back into a sense of normality, then you know it’s a bit different.”
The “Strip That Down” singer was asked if he ever felt in control during his time in One Direction and to that, Liam answered no. “I still struggle with it now,” he said. “I really struggle to say no because I don’t like to let people down. It’s in my nature.”
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One Direction took an indefinite hiatus in 2016 so the group members, also comprising of Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, and Niall Horan, could focus on their solo careers. Founding member Zayn Malik left the group in 2016.
Since then, Liam has established himself as a solo artist, while also raising his 2-year-old son Bear with ex Cheryl. He previously said his anxiety was so bad at times he struggled to leave the house.
When talking to Esquire Middle East he said, “I’d be going in to order a coffee at Starbucks and I would sweat because I wouldn’t know whether I was doing the right thing or not. I would be thinking, ‘Fuck, I don’t want to be here.'” He added, ”
I even used to have a really bad problem with going to petrol stations and paying for petrol. I can feel it now – it was like this horrible anxiety where I’d be sweating buckets in the car thinking, ‘I don’t want to do this.'”
