BACK in 2015, I was on a shoot with the 1D boys when Liam Payne took me to one side – he had something important to tell me.

“I read this quote recently,” he said, looking super-serious.

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Liam Payne wanted to give son Bear ‘as normal a life as possible’Credit: Getty Images

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Kicking off the Take Me Home Tour in 2013Credit: Splash

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Performing for the last time as One Direction on The X Factor finale in 2015Credit: ITV/Planet Photos
“‘It’s not what you do, it’s what happens to you that everyone remembers.’ I think that really applies to me.”

He was 22 at the time and thinking only of his fame with One Direction, one of the most successful boy bands in history.

No one could have predicted that, almost exactly nine years later, his life would tragically be over at the age of 31, after falling to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina.

We were in a photographic studio in London and it was October 2015, just weeks after One Direction had announced their plans to “take a break”.

It was the final interview they would ever do as a band – although they were already minus Zayn Malik, who had quit seven months before.

Crowds of hysterical teenage fans – many accompanied by equally smitten mothers – were swarming the building. The atmosphere was charged.

All four were exhausted after five solid years touring the world, winning armies of fans and awards and selling 70 million albums.

But on that day, each showed signs of how they were going to cope with life without 1D.

Harry Styles, drinking a bulletproof coffee (black with butter for energy) talked about Los Angeles, Niall Horan of going home to Ireland, and Louis Tomlinson (feasting on a Greggs steak bake) was busy arranging nights out with mates he hadn’t been able to hang out with for years.

“I think they had a better laugh at uni than we’ve had – except we’re all sorted for life,” Louis said.

Only Liam had the air of someone who hadn’t got his head around the fact that the crazy red-carpet lifestyle had been pulled from under their feet.

“It’s just a break,” he told me, anxiously. “It’s not a split. We’re not going anywhere. It’s not the end.”

The rest of them were silent. You could see he wasn’t himself. He told me he hadn’t been able to exercise and had hit the mini bar “a bit too hard”.

“I’m a bit of a mess. Basically, we’re all a mess,” he said. “But give us a break and we will sort ourselves out.”

Two months later, in December 2015, they performed together for the very last time on the finale of The X Factor, which had catapulted them to stardom five years earlier. It was, in fact, the end.

Ever since the news of Liam’s tragic death on October 16, when he fell from the third floor of the lavish CasaSur hotel in Buenos Aires, it’s been hard not to think of that quote he felt would always define him – except now, in a very different way.

Liam was always the sensible, responsible one

To me, the real tragedy is that amid all the salacious news and feverish social media speculation, Liam is now being remembered for the circumstances surrounding that fatal fall.

Yet, the lurid rumours concerning his final days do not reflect the Liam Payne I spent time with.

When I first met the newly minted 1D midway through their X Factor journey in 2010, they were the classic mix of talented, good-looking teenagers who knew they were finally on their way to fame and fortune.

Little did they realise they would become known all over the world, and be worth an estimated £110million – but everything comes at a cost.

A few years later, in November 2013, I flew to Sydney to interview the band on tour.

It was no picnic – their days started at 6am and ended at 1am. They were the biggest thing to hit Australia since The Beatles took it by storm in 1964. But they weren’t exactly having the best time.

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Liam recently filmed new show Building The Band with Kelly Rowland and Nicole ScherzingerCredit: Instagram/Nicole Scherzinger

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Liam at the judges’ houses stage of X Factor, aged 14Credit: Shutterstock Editorial

Newly minted 1D

Due to the fan hysteria, the boys were trapped in their hotel rooms whenever they weren’t performing.

Liam told me that Zayn and Niall had gone to get a tattoo at 2am (when many of the fans had finally gone home), and he and Louis had been driven miles out to a remote beach to learn to surf.

“There was just one guy on the beach, but he had a phone. Within 20 minutes, there were about 200 people. We had to get back in the car,” he said.

It’s hard to reconcile the Liam I knew then with the tortured man he became.

Deep down, Liam – who was dating American influencer Kate Cassidy, 25, at the time of his death – was always the sensible and responsible one.

He even earned the nickname “Daddy Directioner”, as he was always keeping his four band mates, who he called his “brothers”, in check.

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Liam with his doting parents Geoff and KarenCredit: Shutterstock Editorial

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The band on The X Factor in 2010Credit: ITV/Planet Photos

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Liam Chilling out at home aged 5
He was the one who, in the band’s early days, told me that he’d never fall prey to sex, drugs and the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, because: “I’ve only got one working kidney, so I can’t even drink. I’m a lightweight.”

He was sweet-natured, funny and analytical. I’ll never forget him telling me in Australia in 2013, about being snapped in the gym while using the running machine, by a girl in full make-up running alongside him.

“I didn’t even notice her till I got off,” he laughed.

His girlfriend in those days was Sophia Smith, who went to the same school as Liam, in his home town of Wolverhampton.

I also remember him also being besotted by little Lux, the toddler daughter of the band’s hair and make-up artist, Lou Teasdale.

“I definitely want to have kids,” he told me. “I think being a dad is the coolest thing.”

He and Cheryl wanted to give Bear as normal a life as possible

It was not the average statement from a teen pop star.

In 2017, Liam did become a dad, to his beloved son Bear, from his two-year relationship with Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole.

And her pleas for privacy in the wake of Liam’s death reflect how keen both of them have always been to give Bear, now seven, as normal a life as possible.

I was stunned to hear of his death last month. My first thoughts were for his family, for Cheryl and his young son. It breaks my heart that this once down-to-earth, funny, talented kid is no longer with us.

Like millions of others, I feel sad that he never got the chance to sort himself out.

There were signs he was trying – with negotiations ongoing for a tour next year, and he’d finished filming a new Netflix show called Building The Band, alongside Nicole Scherzinger and Kelly Rowland, two months before his death.

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He co-parented his son with Cheryl Cole

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Liam with his ex-girlfriend Sophia SmithCredit: Jeff Spicer

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Liam loved being a dad to son Bear

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Liam with Kate Cassidy, who he was dating when he diedCredit: Instagram/Kate Cassidy,
With time, professional help and a good team around him, I’m sure he would have become the man he wanted to be – like his dad Geoff, who Liam described to me as: “Just a proper good, salt-of-the-earth kind of bloke you’d want to be.”

At the height of Liam’s fame, his mum Karen took a life-size cut-out of her youngest child home from a promotional shoot, because she missed having the actual one at home so much.

“She thinks she’s lost me to millions of other fans and to fame,” he told me back in 2013. “But she’ll never really lose me.”

Heartbreakingly, she did. We all did.

But I hope Liam will be remembered for so much more than his tragic end.

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Liam seemed to struggle in recent yearsCredit: Instagram/Kate Cassidy