Police said they discovered Payne’s body after emergency services responded to a call from staff at a hotel where the pop star was staying in the city’s trendy Palermo neighborhood.
Payne rose to global stardom as part of One Direction, the hugely popular boy band that was formed on the UK version of X Factor in 2010. The group, which included Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik, announced an “indefinite hiatus” in 2016.
Hotel staff had requested urgent police assistance shortly before Payne’s death on Wednesday, according to an emergency call obtained by CNN’s Argentine affiliate Todo Noticias.
“We have a guest who is overwhelmed by drugs and alcohol,” the hotel manager said on the call. “He’s trashing everything. He’s trashing the whole room.”
The manager told the operator that because Payne’s room had a balcony, “we’re a little afraid he’ll do something.”
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Earlier this month, the pop star was spotted in Argentina attending her former bandmate Horan’s concert.
CNN has reached out to representatives for Payne and his former One Direction bandmates for comment.
Payne first wowed British audiences as a bright-eyed 14-year-old during his audition for The X Factor in 2008, singing Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon.”
“I should be concentrating on my studies, but I think too much about singing,” she said before her first audition. Payne, who grew up in Wolverhampton, a city in the English Midlands near Birmingham, spoke with a thick Brummie accent that would fade as her career progressed.
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Judge Simon Cowell later cut Payne off before the live performances of that series, telling her to focus on her studies and “come back in two years.”
In 2010, Payne, then 16, returned for his second audition. Later in the series, judge Nicole Scherzinger grouped Payne with Styles, Tomlinson, Horan and Malik to form One Direction. The group came third in the competition and signed to Cowell’s record label, embarking on their first tour the following year, which sold out many of the 54 venues around the world.
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Fame took its toll on Payne, who spoke openly about his struggles with substance abuse and his mental health.
“When you’re doing hundreds and hundreds of [gigs] and it’s the same 22 songs at the same time every day, even if you’re not happy, you have to get out,” Payne told Men’s Health Australia in 2019. He said he often drank before going on stage in an effort to manage stress.
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“It’s almost like putting on the Disney costume before you go on stage and underneath the Disney costume I was drunk most of the time because there was no other way to understand what was going on,” he said. “I mean, it was fun. We had a great time, but there were certain parts where it got a little toxic.”
In another 2019 interview with British broadcaster Sky News, Payne said he felt “quite lucky to still be here, something I’ve never shared with anyone.”
Payne released his debut solo album “LP1” in 2019 and said in 2023 that he was working on his second album. In March of that year, he released the single “Teardrops,” a song he said was “born out of a lot of tears. Some are mine. Some aren’t.”
In the summer of 2023, Payne said he was marking six months of sobriety after completing treatment at a facility in the United States. Payne’s tour was set to begin in South America in September of that year, but he had to postpone the scheduled dates after suffering from a kidney infection.
Payne’s tragic death has left fans and the music industry in shock, with tributes pouring in from celebrities from all corners of the world. The news made the front pages of most UK newspapers on Thursday morning.
In an Instagram post, Harry Styles’ mother Anne Twist posted an image of a broken heart emoji, with the caption, “Just a boy.”
In another tribute on Instagram, former X Factor host Dermot O’Leary said: “I remember him when he was 14 and he auditioned for The X Factor and blew us away singing Sinatra. He loved to sing. He was always a joy, had time for everyone, was polite, appreciative and always humble.”
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A vigil was also held outside the hotel in Buenos Aires.
Yamila Zacarias, a 25-year-old fan, said One Direction “meant a lot to me because I was at a stage [in my life] where I wanted to be a part of something bigger, and One Direction and being a Directioner was that for me.”
Behind her, mourning fans lit candles and sang One Direction’s song “Infinity.”
Payne is survived by his son Bear, whom he had with former Girls Aloud member Cheryl Tweedy. Tweedy is a former X Factor judge who was present at both of Payne’s X Factor auditions. The couple confirmed they split in 2018 but continued to co-parent.
In a video shared on YouTube in 2023, Payne spoke about the love and affection she felt for Bear.
“It’s amazing. He’s growing up so fast,” Payne shared at the time. “He’s so much smarter than I think I’ll ever be. It’s amazing.”
