Harry Styles’ mother posted a moving, three-word tribute to Liam Payne, her son’s One Direction bandmate who died on Wednesday after falling several stories from a hotel balcony in Argentina.
“Just a boy…” Anne Twist wrote about the late 31-year-old on Instagram alongside a photo of a broken heart.
Twist and Payne met when he and her son rose to fame together after appearing on The X-Factor UK in 2010.
The two had originally auditioned solo, but the judges put Payne, Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson together to form One Direction.
They quickly skyrocketed to become an international phenomenon and the best-selling boy band of all time, despite only placing third on the show.
Payne plunged to his death from the third floor of the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires on Wednesday night.
He had been “acting erratic” in the hours before his death and may have been “under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”
Sources told Page Six the “Strip That Down” singer “had been cycling through periods of ruinous behavior for a long time.”
Payne arrived in Argentina earlier this month with his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, to support Horan, who had a show there.
Horan’s brother said on Thursday that he was completely “heartbroken” by Payne’s sudden death.
“You were a top young boy to a man a son a brother you are only one of 4 lads I was happy enough to take my place in nialls life as a brother you will be forever missed,” Greg Horan posted on Instagram.
“Liam words can’t describe how much I want to grab my brother and mind him now while the world shows their memories of you and him and the boys,” he added.
Styles, 30, Horan, 31, Tomlinson, 32, and Malik, 31, have yet to publicly react to the news of their former bandmate’s death.
Payne leaves behind his 7-year-old son, Bear, who he fathered with his ex, singer Cheryl Cole.
