Liam Payne "struggled" dealing with fame as a teenager.
The 24-year-old star was catapulted into the spotlight when he and his One Direction band mates Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and former member Zayn Malik placed third on the 2010 series of ‘The X Factor’, when they were all between the ages of 16 and 18.
Now, all five members have pursued their own solo careers, and Liam – who has 13-month-old son Bear with his girlfriend Cheryl Tweedy – has had a chance to reflect on how quickly his life was changed by the boy band.
He said: "I found it very strange. I struggled in places. It was scary. It was, at times. I remember being in NY, and I love New York, I love New York, but I remember feeling like: ‘I can’t be here.’
"I was going to a restaurant with my dad and my dad, bless him, was like: ‘Why don’t we just go out somewhere for a burger?’ And I was like, ‘it’s not that simple.’
"So we went. We had to change restaurants 3 times, my mum got knocked over by a paparazzi, then I was like ‘Right, I’m done. I’ve had enough. That’s enough.’ Then I threw a little tantrum and I was young, I was 19 … but you have to just grasp those things. And I do now, I understand it all more now."
And the ‘Bedroom Floor’ hitmaker can’t even bring himself to watch footage of his time with the ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ singers, as he finds the 2013 movie ‘One Direction: This Is Us’ "too close to home".
Speaking about the flick, he said: "Me and Cheryl went to watch it one day and I was like, ‘I can’t,’ I just couldn’t watch it. It was too much for me. Too close to home."
Liam’s 34-year-old partner Cheryl knows all about the struggle of being in a band having previously been a member of Girls Aloud, and he has admitted the pair do have "fan nights" where they listen to each other’s old material.
Speaking to Tom Green for UK radio station KISS FM, Liam said: "We started showing each other like little old bits of Girls Aloud stuff and we had a little fan night together where we just sat and watched each other’s old things. It was quite nice, because I know a lot about Cheryl, but I wasn’t a massive Girls Aloud fan, my sisters were, so it was nice for me to understand what we’ve been through is quite similar."
Liam Payne struggled with fame
