Liam Payne has spoken out about his battles with addiction and mental illness. “I didn’t like myself at all” during his early boy band days, which he said were filled with “pills and drink” and “moments of suicidal ideation,” according to the “One Direction” alum.  “There are just some stuff I’ve definitely never spoken about,” the 27-year-old told Steven Bartle, host of “The Diary of a CEO” podcast. Sunday was the day that. “It was a dreadful, god awful, horrid situation. It was an issue.” 

Payne rose to prominence at the age of 16 as members of “One Direction,” which included Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik, when the group participated on “The X Factor” in 2010. In 2015, the group, and was one of the best-selling boy bands of all time, needed a sabbatical. “I was like, ‘Thank the Lord,’ the day the band ended things,” Payne added. “I know a lot of people are going to be really upset with me even though I said all that, but I had to finish or I’d starve to death.”

Payne confesses to struggling with alcoholism during the band’s heyday, when he spent a lot of time on the roads for four stage shows. “Because of our size, the correct strategy to keep the country safe in the band was to lock us up in our rooms.” What’s going on in this room? “It’s a mini-bar,” he answered. “At one point, I thought to myself, ‘I’m just going to have a one-on-one party,’ and that made an appearance to last for a long period of time.” Then you realise how important you’ve been drinking and remark to yourself, “Jesus Christ, that’s a long time.”

“That was wild, but it was the only way you could get the frustration out,” the “Strip That Down” singer continued. Liam Payne of One Direction explains his solo project “LP1” and going to AA meetings with Russell Brand. From the outside, “One Direction” appears to be empowered and can do whatever they want, according to Payne. He felt “stranded” in “lonely boarding houses” that “actually (expletive) me up,” he claimed. “At night, we were continuously isolated in a hotel room,” he recalled. “Then it’d be a car, a hotel room, a stage, a song, and a locked door.” So it appeared that they took the dust cloth off and let us out for a minute before putting it back on.” “There must have been times when it became toxic and unpleasant,” he continued.