Liam Payne's tragic admission a year before his death as he said 'don't recognise myself'

The One Direction star released a video after being subjected to death threats

In a heart-wrenching video shared a year before his untimely death, Liam Payne confessed to becoming "someone I didn't recognise". The One Direction sensation tragically died at the age of 31 after falling from a third-floor balcony at a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Wednesday night.

He had previously expressed feeling "misunderstood" following an interview with Logan Paul, 29, which led to a wave of "death threats" after he criticised his bandmates, notably Zayn Malik, 31. In the video, which was posted in July 2023 and has since resurfaced following his death, the Strip That Down singer revealed that he "feels differently now".

Sitting on a sofa, he addressed the camera, saying: "I just took a little bit of time out, sorry for the MIA. There's a few reasons I did that. I just needed to take a bit of time out for myself because I became someone I didn't recognise any more. And I'm sure you didn't either."

Read more Zayn Malik makes major career announcement after Liam Payne's death

Continuing in his own video, the X Factor alumnus stated: "I'm not going to let anyone else take the blame for what I said. There was a lot of hate online for them which I thought was unfair because they didn't do anything wrong, they were doing their job."

Liam then admitted: "I think for me a lot of what I said was coming from the wrong place. I just took it out on everybody else. I was getting a lot of hate online. There was death threats, all sorts of stuff."

In a frank interview on the "Impaulsive" podcast in 2022, Liam revealed the depth of the suffering he experienced behind closed doors, drawing parallels with his former bandmate Zayn Malik. On the podcast, Liam expressed that there were "many reasons" he disliked Zayn but also "many reasons why [he'd] always be on his side."

Liam reflected on his own upbringing, describing his parents as "overly supportive" to the point it was "annoying at times", contrasting this with Zayn, who he said had a "different upbringing in that sense".