Musicians including Beverley Knight and Chesney Hawkes reflected on the death of One Direction star and solo artist Liam Payne at this week’s Pride of Britain awards, at the same time as calling for greater protections for younger artists.
A number of stars turned up for the annual ceremony in London on Monday (21 October), where the mood turned sombre as they were asked about the impact of Payne’s death, aged 31, last week.
Singer, songwriter and actor Knight, known for hits including “Greatest Day” and “Shoulda Woulda Coulda”, pointed out that Payne hailed from her hometown of Wolverhampton: “He walked the same streets as me. I knew the school he went to, people he hung around with.”
She told the Daily Mail: “To see a lad so young with so much going for him to the outside world, and to see where the other side of fame took him has broken my heart.”
She called on better care for younger artists, with a priority placed on their mental health: “We need more care for young people in the music industry,” she said. “He was initially 14, 15, when he started, the 1D lads were babies! And as minors there should be so much more care, so much more care.”
Payne was just 14 when he first auditioned on reality TV show The X Factor, before returning aged 16 in 2010 when he was grouped with his One Direction bandmates, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan.
Knight pointed out that, in theatre, young performers often have chaperones until they turn 18: “We should have the same in music.”
Hawkes, who shot to international fame in the early Nineties with his single “The One and Only” when he was just 19, said that reality TV shows have led to “casualties”.
“Going through this business is not an easy thing,” he said. “I feel for Liam and his family. It does spit you out, this business, and I feel there needs to be more support for artists. Especially artists [who] go through these reality shows where they are very famous for one minute and then spat out.”
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Payne was open during his career about the toll fame had taken on his mental health.
He said his exasperation with fame came to a head in New York in 2012 when he was walking to a restaurant with his parents, and a photographer accidentally pushed his mum down. “I was like, ‘Oh, f*** this. F*** this s***,’” he recalled. “There was a swarm of them and I just wanted a burger with my parents. I cried my eyes out. I thought, ‘I can’t do this,’ and really hated my life.”
A preliminary toxicology report found that the singer, who died on 16 October, had multiple substances in his system when he died in a fall from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina, sources told ABC News.
According to the New York Times, the final toxicology results are pending, with no confirmed date for their release. A spokesman for the Buenos Aires police also said the preliminary toxicology report was handed over to the local prosecutor’s office, which is investigating the death as a matter of protocol.