The parents of Liam Payne once admitted to a sweet practice that would help them feel closer to their son whenever he was off touring the world.
People all over the world are currently mourning the loss of former One Direction singer Payne, who tragically died in Argentina yesterday (October 16).
The 31-year-old was pronounced dead in Buenos Aires after having fallen around 40 meters from the third floor balcony of the Hotel CasaSur hotel, local authorities report.
Payne, who is understood to have been in the country to attend the concert of ex-bandmate Niall Horan, 31, died from ‘severe injuries which were incompatible with life’, according to reports from emergency services.
Following his death, various figures have paid tribute to the ‘Best Song Ever’ singer, with Harry Styles’ mum Anne Twist, 56, issuing a three-word tribute to the father-of-one.
Payne, who grew up in Wolverhampton, found fame on the seventh season of the now-defunct ITV talent competition, The X Factor.
After catching the eye of Simon Cowell and Nicole Scherzinger with his rendition of ‘Cry Me a River’ in 2010, the 16-year-old musician was eventually put in One Direction, alongside fellow finalists, Horan, Styles, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson.
Liam Payne was best known for being a member of One Direction (Marc Piasecki/GC Images)
After placing third behind Matt Cardle and Ferguson, the quintet toured the world and scored four No. 1 albums before taking an indefinite hiatus in 2016.
In the early days of One Direction’s dominance, Payne’s father Geoff and his mother Karen were overjoyed by their son’s success.
During the group’s 2013 documentary This Is Us, Karen admitted that they’d kept a cardboard cut-out of him in their living room whenever he went on tour.
“We miss him,” she admitted. “He left home my little boy and became the boy in a magazine.
“If I have this I can still see him every day. When I see him on stage I absolutely burst with pride, but we do miss him so much.”
Geoff added as per The Mirror: “It’s not just the mums, it’s the dads that struggle, too.
The star’s parents would keep a cardboard cut-out of him (Instagram/misskarenpayne)
“He’s the only lad in the family and I’ll never get this time back, he’s gone,” he said.
“And I can’t give him advice because he has seen more of the world than me.”
In the hours following Payne’s death, Alberto Crescenti, the head of the state emergency medical system, announced that an alarm had been raised at 5.04pm local time, stating a ‘person was lying in an internal patio at Casa Sur’.
“At 5.11pm an ambulance arrived and the man was certified dead,” he continued.
“Afterwards we found out he had been a famous singer. Unfortunately the injuries he had suffered as a result of the fall proved to be fatal.
“There was no possibility of resuscitating him.”