Robbie Williams told Deadline on Saturday that Liam Payne’s tragic death had hit him hard: “We’re processing a world-wide shock. I’m sat in depression, and I’m sat in sadness. A huge part of that is Liam-shaped.”
Williams called for action around the way society handles fame and celebrity, saying, “Nothing seems to change and if isn’t me, then who?… I am the problem if I do nothing. We are the problem if we don’t.”
Payne, a former member of the band One Direction, died on Wednesday after falling from the third-floor balcony of room at the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was 31.
Liam Payne
Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Atlantis The Royal
Like Payne when he joined One Direction, Williams was aged just 16 when he shot to fame with the band Take That in 1990. Then in 2010, Williams mentored Payne and his One Direction bandmates on The X-Factor.
Williams was speaking to Deadline in an interview about upcoming film Better Man, a biopic co-written and directed by Michael Gracey, depicting the pressures of Williams’ early fame and his painful downward spiral with addiction.
Robbie Williams
Ben King
Williams also heralded singer-songwriter Chappell Roan who has criticized the way celebrity artists are exposed. Williams said she had pushed back “brilliantly” and “I’m here for that. I used to say the same thing in the ’90s, but I would get derided for it. Like, ‘How dare you be anything other than grateful, you ungrateful pond life.’ But this is not a fame problem, this is a human problem. This is a social problem, this is a social media problem. This isn’t just us celebrities, this is us humans.”
On Friday, Williams had posted a tribute to Payne on his Instagram account, writing, “How to make sense of the Liam Payne tragedy? Obviously, my first feelings towards his passing were like everyone else. Shock, sadness and confusion. And to be honest as I write these words that’s where I still am.
“I met the boys on The X Factor and ‘mentored’ them. I use the word mentored in inverted brackets cos I hardly did anything to be honest. I just hung out with them. They were all cheeky and lovely. I enjoyed the light hearted p—takery and thought about all the times I was that cheeky p—takers with the popstars that had gone before me when I was in Take That. Our paths have crossed ever since that day and I’m fond of them all. Liam’s trials and tribulations were very similar to mine, so it made sense to reach out and offer what I could. So I did.”