Thousands of Liam Payne fans hold memorials worldwide for One Direction singer
The 31-year-old died after a fall at a hotel in Argentina on Wednesday.
Thousands of Liam Payne fans have tearfully remembered the late One Direction singer at memorial events in the UK and many other parts of the world.
Directioners, the name given to supporters of The X Factor-formed band, sang and left tributes in London, Glasgow, Paris, Sydney and New York – as well as in the Philippines and Colombia – to celebrate the life of the 31-year-old who died on Wednesday.
On Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park, central London, hundreds of fans queued to leave handwritten notes, balloons and flowers at the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens.
Tess Hayden, 24, who was on holiday with her brother in Dublin, Ireland, when she heard the news, told the PA news agency that she made changes to her schedule so she could be with One Directions fans in London.
The tourist, from the US, said: “Well, my older brother and I had been planning a trip to Dublin for a while, and I knew I was gonna try and come to London at some point at the end of the trip, but when I woke up and heard the news, I was like, ‘OK, I’ll just go a day earlier (and) try and figure (it) out.”
She called the news “very surreal” as a death at 31 is “very sad and devastating, and shocking”.
Many of the mainly young people at the vigil embraced their friends and family members as they became emotional, while remembering the band they grew up with, as well as singing One Direction chart-toppers such as What Makes You Beautiful in unison.
The crowd was so large that at several points organisers asked those who were gathered in the centre to leave their tributes, and head to the back so other fans could get through.
Those who reached the statue of Peter Pan wrote messages, sang or told “Liam, I love you”, which garnered applause and shouts of approval from those at the remembrance event.
There was one police car, situated at the end of the queue.
Before the weekend, Payne’s father headed to Buenos Aires to arrange the repatriation of his son’s body.
Geoff Payne visited the Casa Sur Hotel on Friday in the Argentine capital, where the Wolverhampton star fell from a third-floor balcony, and read letters and cards from fans outside.
Speaking in Hyde Park to PA, Lauren Anderson and Natasha Bradley, both 23, reflected on how they had dealt with the grief together.
Ms Bradley said “Lauren’s been the one that I’ve been speaking to the most about it”, and she wanted to be around people who were “feeling the same because your parents, they don’t really understand how much they really meant to you growing up”.
Ellen Cree, 29, who attended a memorial at the Walter Scott Monument in George Square in Glasgow, said it was a “very poignant event”.
Ms Cree, from Dunfermline, Fife, who left white roses and a card with her sister, told PA: “From my point of view, it was of course very sad, with a lot of tears, but there were hints of happiness, with people chatting about fond memories and singing along to music.”
On Saturday, his sister Ruth Gibbins paid a heartfelt tribute to her brother on Instagram saying she does not feel “this world was good enough or kind enough” to him, as well as sharing pictures.
She also wrote “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you” and added: “One last time I need you to know, I’m here if you need anything, I’d drive to the end of the universe to bring you back.”
That same day, Britain’s Got Talent auditions restarted in Blackpool following them being rescheduled after Payne’s death and former One Direction member Zayn Malik announced he would postpone the US leg of his tour.
Malik, who left The X Factor-formed boyband in 2015 before they went on hiatus in 2016, wrote on X that he was making the decision “given the heartbreaking loss experienced this week”.
“The dates are being rescheduled for January and I’ll post them as soon as it’s all set in the next few days,” he wrote. “Your tickets will remain valid for the new dates. Love you all and thank you for your understanding.”
He is set to perform in Edinburgh, London, Wolverhampton, Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester throughout the final two months of this year, and a spokesman for the singer confirmed these dates are unchanged.
Other tribute events to Payne have been held at the Obelisco landmark in Buenos Aires, at the Tuileries Garden in the French capital, at the Stockholm music studio in Sweden where One Direction recorded albums, central Brussels, and the British Embassy in Russia.
Payne died of multiple traumas and “internal and external haemorrhage”, a post-mortem examination report said.
Argentina’s National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office No 16 said it was investigating the incident as an “inconclusive death”.
It said five witnesses were questioned in order to reconstruct what happened at the hotel.
A joint statement from One Direction said they were “completely devastated” and will miss the singer “terribly”, adding the “memories we shared with him will be treasured forever”.
