Liam Payne

Liam James Payne (born 29 August 1993) is an English singer.

He rose to fame as a member of the boy band One Direction.

Payne made his debut as a singer in 2008 when he auditioned for the British television series The X Factor.

Payne first auditioned for the fifth series of The X Factor in 2008, at just 14 years old, in front of judges Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, Dannii Minogue and Louis Walsh.

Payne moved past the first round after performing Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon".

He was subsequently cut at the Boot Camp stage, but Cowell then changed his mind and asked Payne to return for the judges' houses stage.

Payne was cut again during judges' houses, but was encouraged by Cowell to "come back in two years".

After being eliminated in the competition, he auditioned again in 2010 and was put into a group with four other contestants to form One Direction, which went on to become one of the best-selling boy bands of all time.

Payne worked with other producers under the monikers "Big Payno" and "Payno" creating remixes for songs by his group and Cheryl.

After One Direction's hiatus, Payne signed a recording deal with Republic Records in North America.

Payne returned to the show in 2010 for the seventh series, auditioning in front of Cowell, Cole, Walsh and guest judge Natalie Imbruglia.

He sang the Michael Bublé version of "Cry Me a River", which earned him four yeses and a standing ovation from Cowell.

Payne was considered the second favourite to win the competition following his solo audition.

He failed to progress to the "Boys" category at judges' houses, but after a suggestion by guest judge Nicole Scherzinger, Payne, along with Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik, were put together to form a five-piece boy band at Wembley Arena, during the bootcamp stage of the competition, thus qualifying for the "Groups" category.

Subsequently, the group got together for two weeks to get to know each other and to practice.

For their qualifying song at Judges' houses, and their first song as a group, they performed an acoustic version of "Torn".

Cowell later commented that the performance convinced him that the group "were confident, fun, like a gang of friends, and kind of fearless as well."

The group quickly gained popularity in the UK, ultimately coming in third place on the show.

Following The X Factor, One Direction were signed to Simon Cowell's Syco Entertainment.

A book licensed by One Direction, One Direction: Forever Young (Our Official X Factor Story), was released in February 2011 and topped The Sunday Times' Best Seller list.

Their debut single, "What Makes You Beautiful", was released in September 2011, and was a commercial and international success, reaching number one in several countries.

Their debut album, Up All Night, was released in Ireland and the UK of November of that same year, charting at number one and number two, respectively.

The album was released worldwide in March 2012, and One Direction became the first UK group to have their debut album reach number one in the United States.

In May 2017, Payne released "Strip That Down" as the lead single from his debut album.

It peaked at number three on the UK Singles Chart and number ten on the US Billboard Hot 100, being certified platinum in both countries.

His debut album, LP1, was released in December 2019.

He has sold over 18 million singles in under three years since One Direction's hiatus, and over 3.9 billion career streams in that span.

Liam James Payne was born at New Cross Hospital in the Heath Town district of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England.

He is the son of Karen Payne, an infant nurse, and Geoff Payne, a fitter.

He has two older sisters, Nicola and Ruth Payne.

Payne was born three weeks early, getting ill frequently.

Until the age of four, Payne had regular tests done in hospital as doctors noticed one of his kidneys was scarred and dysfunctional.

To help cope with the pain, he had sixteen injections in his arm every morning and another sixteen every evening as a child.

As a student, Payne was heavily involved in sports, particularly cross country running.

Payne originally joined the Wolverhampton and Bilston Athletics Club to pursue his running career.

For three years he was ranked in the top three 1500m runners in the country within his age group.

As he was dealing with bullying from some older students in secondary school, he took up boxing lessons at the age of twelve.

Payne completed 11 GCSEs at St Peter's Collegiate School (now St Peter's Collegiate Academy) before moving on to study music technology at City of Wolverhampton College.

Payne was first introduced to the world of show business at age twelve as a member of the Pink Productions Theatre Company, even appearing as Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever.

Payne had previously performed in front of a crowd of 26,000 during a Wolverhampton Wanderers football match.