Liam Payne Previously Spoke Out About Mental Health, Addiction & Sobriety Struggles Prior to Death | Liam Payne | Just Jared: Celebrity News and Gossip

Liam Payne previously opened up about his struggles with fame and addiction prior to his death on Wednesday (October 16).

The singer, who sadly died at 31, discussed hitting “rock bottom” while in One Direction in a conversation back in 2021, where he addressed alcoholism and suicidal ideation on The Diary of a CEO podcast.

“I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be. Where’s rock bottom for me? And you would never have seen it. I’m very good at hiding it. No one would ever have seen it,” he said.

“There is some stuff that I have definitely never, never spoken about. It was really, really, really severe. And it was a problem. And it was only until I saw myself after that, I was like ‘Right, I need to fix myself,’” he continued.

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He recalled seeing unflattering pictures of himself on a boat:: “I was all bloated out… I call it my pills-and-booze face. My face was just like 10 times more than it is now. I just didn’t like myself very much and then I made a change.”

He also opened up about drinking.

“The problem was… the best way to secure us, because of how big it got, was to lock us in a room. And, of course, what is in the room? A minibar,” he explained.

“At a certain point, I just thought, ‘Well, I’m going to have a party for one,’ and that just seemed to carry on throughout many years of my life.”

“It was wild, but it was the only way you could get the frustration out in the day,” he said.

“As a teen, the one thing you need is freedom to make choices and freedom to do stuff,” Liam went on. “Although we could do anything we wanted, it seemed from the outside, that we were always locked in a room at night. And then it would be car, hotel room, stage, sing, locked. So, it was like they pulled the dust cloth off, let us out for a minute to go ‘Woohoo’ then it’s like ‘Get back underneath here!’”

He also admitted that his drinking struggles continued amid the pandemic, and downtime was “the worst thing in the world for me.”

“It was just getting earlier and earlier. Easier and easier to go to. What I’ve found more than anything with the alcohol and stuff is boundaries. There were no boundaries. So, if you’re on Zoom you quite easily hide that you might be a little bit tipsy at the point you shouldn’t be,” he admitted, adding that he “put on so much weight” during the global lockdown, and even formulated an elaborate excuse.

“I was eating badly and describing it as a bulking period, [saying], ‘I’m doing it for a movie role! It’s all good!’ That’s the best excuse if anyone asks if you’ve put on weight, say, ‘It’s for a role. It’s coming out 2022,’” he said.

At the time in 2021, he said he was getting support from his bandmates.

“I had a lovely phone call from Harry the other day. He was checking in on me. It’s almost as if some people have got a sixth sense about when you’re going through something and want to check in.”

He added: “He’s very much like that. He’s a lovely, lovely boy. I love him to pieces.”

Watch the full interview…