For One Direction fans, Liam Payne's death is a 'watershed' moment

Elena and Vanessa Robustelli listen to One Direction so much that even eight years after the boy band broke up, its songs still make it on their annual Spotify Wrapped lists.

But Wednesday, said the twin sisters, 25, the music they normally turn to for comfort became a source of grief after news broke that band member Liam Payne had died at age 31.

“It’s really hard,” said Vanessa Robustelli, who lives in New York City. “What do you do with grief when it’s somebody that you don’t know but you have this really dull ache in your chest?”

Vanessa, left, and Elena Robustelli grew up loving One Direction and still listen to its music.Courtesy Elena and Vanessa Robustelli

Payne’s death came as a shock to thousands of One Direction fans, known as Directioners, who did not expect to lose their idol at such a young age. Payne fell from the third floor of a hotel in Argentina, local authorities said.

Many One Direction fans were tweens and teens when the band started taking off in the early 2010s on the heels of its appearance on the U.K. reality competition show “The X-Factor.” 

To them, Payne’s death was a “watershed moment” — one that both reminded them of their youth and made them suddenly feel like adults. 

“I don’t know if I’m necessarily grieving Liam as the person, but more so what this kind of marks for my generation,” said Valerie Buvat De Virginy, 25, who lives in Madrid. “It just seems like such a watershed moment and like such a turning point. … Reckoning with the concept of mortality is terrifying, and knowing that I’ve spent essentially half of my life loving this band is crazy.” 

As news of Payne’s death circulated online, group chats and fan accounts dedicated to One Direction — some of which have been inactive for years — were once again buzzing. 

“I had over 200 missed text messages, and I just froze,” said Olivia Hagans, 25, of New York City. “I just didn’t even know what to say. It’s just shocking, and I cried a little bit last night because I was sad for my teenage self.” 

Olivia Hagans, top center, said she met her best friends through the One Direction community.Courtesy Olivia Hagans

Payne’s death also stirred feelings about the legacy he leaves behind. Some said the band led them to careers in the music industry, social media or other creative fields. Others said they met their best friends because of their shared love for the group. 

Some Directioners compared Payne’s death to the death of John Lennon for Beatles fans, citing the similarities between the fervor around the bands and the intense support from their supporters. 

Logan Hill, 27, said the community of fans was “the most important thing” that came from the band’s existence.

One Direction fans have been considered some of the originators of modern stan Twitter, which is a community of diehard fandoms on X that began organizing in the early 2010s. Directioners used to use the platform to interact with the band, get it trending online and organize as fans. 

“I’m traveling across the country to go see concerts with people I’ve met on Twitter,” now X, Hill said. “I know people from all over the world because of them.”

But some fans shared more complicated feelings about Payne, saying it was hard to grieve him while also reckoning with recent allegations about his personal life.

In the days before Payne died, his ex-fiancée, Maya Henry, alleged that he repeatedly contacted her and her relatives. “Ever since we broke up, he messages me, will blow up my phone. Not only from his phone; it’s always from different phone numbers, too, so I never know where it’s going to come from,” she said in a TikTok video on Oct. 6.

The Daily Mail spoke to her lawyers and said Henry had issued a cease-and-desist letter to Payne. Her attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Henry, 23, whose relationship with Payne ended in 2022, wrote a novel called “Looking Forward” about a girl who falls in love with a charming pop star. The book has a content warning because it deals with abortion, abuse, violence, self-harm, substance abuse and eating disorders. She has said it was “inspired by true events.”

Representatives for Henry declined to comment. 

Amy Miller, 27, said the community has given one another a “safe space” to process the positive and negative emotions that come with Payne’s death and the scrutiny he experienced ahead of it.

Amy Miller had a cardboard cutout of Niall Horan in her bedroom as a teen.Courtesy Amy Miller

As fans and the band members have grown up together, Miller said, it has become clearer to see that the group members are so young. 

Payne “had so much time to potentially turn things around and get the help he needed and be held accountable and have some positive effects going forward,” said Miller, who lives in London. 

Many said it has been bittersweet to see the online Directioner community come together for the first time in years for such devastating news.

“You’re mourning the person in the same space where you obsessed over them, and you tweeted about them consistently, and you wanted to get their attention, and you just put all this energy online into loving them,” said Nyela Graham, 26, who lives in New York City. “It’s now a strange experience to be using the same forum to be expressing grief.”