Boyzone star Mikey Graham has called for record companies to take action to protect their young talent following following the death of former One Direction singer Liam Payne.
The 52-year-old Irish singer - who like Payne shot to stardom in a boyband - said fame can be “very damaging” with “nobody honest” around to help those struggling.
Taking to social media, Graham penned: "Rip Liam Payne. Such tragic news. I think it would be a wise move for record companies to have psychologists on their books from now on in his memory as a duty of care for the vulnerability of their young talent.”
He added: “Fame can be very damaging especially in today’s world. Lots of money. Nobody to help. Lots of yes people. Nobody honest."
Rip Liam Payne. Such tragic news. I think it would be a wise move for record companies to have psychologists on their books from now on in his memory as a duty of care for the vulnerability of their young talent. Fame can be very damaging especially in today’s world. Lots of…
— Mikey Graham / Boyzone (@MRMIKEYGRAHAM) October 16, 2024
Payne died aged 31 in Argentina on Wednesday evening after falling from the balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires, police said.
He plunged from the third floor of the Casa Sur Hotel in the Palermo neighbourhood resulting in "extremely serious injuries", according to authorities. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The circumstances around his death are still being investigated.
An emergency call was placed by a worker at the hotel where Payne was staying prior to his death in which they request help due to a a guest “drunk with drugs and alcohol”.
The worker said: “When he [them, gender not clear in conversation] is conscious, he is breaking everything in the room."
They added: “We need to send someone with urgency because I don't know if the guest's life is in danger because he is in a room with balcony, and we are afraid he could do something that threatens life."
One Direction - which also consisted of members Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson - became one of the biggest pop groups in the world with five albums and four world tours after being put together by Simon Cowell on the X-Factor in 2010.
The band went on indefinite hiatus after Malik announced his departure in 2015.
All of the members later went on to forge solo careers with varying levels of success.
In 2021, Wolverhampton-born Payne opened up about struggling with alcohol and prescription drug addiction at the height of One Direction’s fame.
Appearing on Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast host, he admitted that he "didn't like myself very much" during the boy band days.
He said they were filled with "pills and booze" and "moments of suicidal ideation."
Payne explained: "There is some stuff that I’ve definitely never spoken about. It was really, really, really severe. It was a problem."
He went on to tell how things got much worse when they were on tours, locked up in hotel rooms for days.
"In the band... the best way to secure us, because of how big we’d got, was just to lock us in our rooms. What’s in the room? A mini-bar," he said.
“So at a certain point I thought, I’m just going to have a party-for-one and that seemed to carry on for many years of my life. Then you look back at how long you’ve been drinking and you’re like, 'Jesus Christ, that's a long time.'”
Last year, he uploaded a video on his YouTube channel in which he spoke about his family, working on new music and his hopes get back on stage after having given up alcohol. He also thanked supporters for sticking with him through difficult times.
