One Direction’s Liam Payne joins long list of musicians who died young amid addiction battles

The 31-year-old former One Direction singer was found dead after falling from the hotel’s third floor. According to a report from Reuters, police were called to the hotel in Buenos Aires responding to an emergency call that cited “an aggressive man who could be under the effects of drugs and alcohol.”
One Direction singer Liam Payne’s shocking death is still being investigated, but a preliminary autopsy report from authorities in Argentina noted that the musician was “going through some type of outbreak resulting from substance abuse.”
Officials confirmed Payne died after 5 p.m. at the Casa Sur hotel in the Palermo district, located on Costa Rica Street in Buenos Aries, Argentina, as a “result of the fall he suffered from the balcony of the third floor room of the hotel.” He was 31.
An employee called the emergency line to ask for help for a guest who was “under the influence of drugs and alcohol who had destroyed some objects in the room” and officials said they found Payne’s hotel room “in complete disarray” with “various items broken.” Packs of clonazepam (commonly sold under the brand name Klonopin and works as a central nervous system depressant), energy supplements and other over-the-counter drugs were found strewn among his belongings, according to The Associated Press.
Liam Payne died Wednesday as a “result of the fall he suffered from the balcony of the third floor room,” according to a preliminary autopsy report. (Getty Images)
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Payne had been open about his addiction and mental health issues in previous interviews, telling Steven Barlett on “The Diary of a CEO” podcast that many of his days were filled with “pills and booze.”
Sadly, Payne is not the only musician to struggle with substance and mental health issues, only to have life cut tragically short.
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Aaron Carter died at age 34 after years of struggling with drugs and mental health issues. (Photo by Gilbert Carrasquillo/WireImage via Getty Images)
Aaron Carter, the younger brother of Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter, started his own pop star career young, releasing his first album at age 13.
As his star rose, Carter began struggling with addiction issues after being introduced to huffing by his older sister, Leslie, who died of a drug overdose in 2012.
“Started when I was about 16,” he said on an episode of “The Doctors” in 2019. Carter revealed that, after his stint on “Dancing with the Stars,” he began going to “Staples and Office Depot” to purchase inhalants, “buying it with cash so it wouldn’t be reported on receipts or anything like that, so no one could trace me.
“I was huffing because I was really f—ing stupid and sad, but this is really no excuse. I was huffing because I’m a drug addict.”
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On the show, he also revealed he had several mental health diagnoses, including “multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, acute anxiety; I’m manic depressive” and had been prescribed “Xanax, Seroquel, gabapentin, hydroxyzine, trazodone, omeprazole.”
Carter did several stints in rehab, but in 2022 he was found dead in the bathtub of his home. The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner later confirmed that the “effects of difluoroethane and alprazolam” were contributing factors in the 34-year-old’s accidental death. Difluoroethane is an aerosol propellant found in spray cans, and alprazolam is commonly referred to as Xanax.
Amy Winehouse rocketed to fame in the mid 2000s but died at age 27 from alcohol poisoning. (Getty Images)
Amy Winehouse rocketed to fame with her retro sound and signature beehive look, becoming an international sensation with her 2006 album “Back to Black.” But as her fame grew, so did her struggles with alcohol and drugs.
One of her most famous songs, “Rehab,” teases with the idea of addiction and refusing rehab, and she admitted to Rolling Stone in 2007 she started smoking weed at 14 and dropped out of school. She also told the outlet she suffered from depression, and the author noted she appeared to have self-harm scars.
Winehouse also faced legal issues from her drug problems, including arrests and stints in rehab. 
In July 2011, Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27. 
Her father, Mitch Winehouse, told Fox News Digital in 2023, “After she passed away, there was speculation that she committed suicide, which was nonsensical then. We know what happened. What happened was a terrible accident. After five and a half weeks of total sobriety, she then went on a bender and [had] alcohol poisoning. That’s what happened.”
Mac Miller was open about his struggles in his lyrics, including depression and drug addiction. (David Wolff – Patrick/Redferns via Getty Images)
Mac Miller, born Malcolm James McCormick, was a rapper with several albums, and had hit songs including “The Way,” with his one-time girlfriend Ariana Grande.
Miller was open about his issues in his lyrics, like referencing a drug addiction similar to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died in 2014 from a drug overdose at age 26.
In a 2015 interview with Billboard about his album, “Faces,” he said it was super depressing, adding, “”I’m not as depressed anymore. Making music when you’re depressed is great therapy, but I wanted this album to be in a different headspace,” he noted, adding that he was learning to “live a little bit more.” 
That same year, he told Larry King his depression and drug use were intertwined, stating, “I think it started [with success]. It’s funny, because you talk to people, and they say, ‘What do you have to be depressed about? You have money.’… Fame is tricky because you read what’s said about you, and you know what you know to be true, and the lines start to blur.”
He continued to be open about his issues up until his death in 2018. He was found unresponsive by his assistant inside his Los Angeles home, and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner and Coroner ruled that Miller died from an accidental overdose caused by a lethal cocktail of fentanyl, cocaine, and alcohol, FOX 5 San Diego reported.
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Kurt Cobain defined the grunge movement in the early 90s before his death by suicide in 1994. (Frank Micelotta/Getty Images)
Kurt Cobain was an instrumental figure in the early 90s grunge movement as the lead singer and guitarist of Nirvana.
But behind the scenes, he struggled with depression and a reported heroin addiction that led to attempted intervention by his wife Courtney Love and others approximately a week before he died by suicide at the age of 27.
The band’s former manager Danny Goldberg released a memoir about the late singer in 2019, detailing Cobain’s struggles, and told Yahoo Entertainment, “I felt enormous grief, as I still do, but I just see it as a disease that no one can cure. If somebody died of cancer at 27, you wouldn’t be angry with them; you would just mourn them. And I think this was a mental illness that nobody knew how to cure.”
In March, Cobain had overdosed on champagne and Rohypnol and was hospitalized. He later agreed to a detox program in Los Angeles but left on March 30 and was missing for several days.
On April 8, his body was discovered at his Seattle area home, having ended his life three days prior from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head.
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Jimi Hendrix was a revolutionary guitarist in the 1960s, but died following taking sleeping pills at age 27. (David Redfern/Redferns)
Jimi Hendrix is widely regarded as one of the greatest guitarists in rock ‘n’ roll history, but he succumbed to a drug overdose at age 27 in 1970, just a few years after his career took off.
Police at the time said the star took nine sleeping pills and died of suffocation from choking on his vomit, Rolling Stone reported. According to the outlet, English singer-songwriter Eric Burdon said Hendrix left behind a “suicide note” that was actually a poem several pages in length.
Hendrix’s death is still somewhat shrouded in mystery due to conflicting stories from people who were with the singer in his final days, including when an ambulance was called and how quickly it arrived to the London hotel where he died.
British author Phil Norman told Fox News Digital in 2020 that Hendrix’s death came from more than “overindulgence, over-excess in drugs and alcohol” but exhaustion from touring and the influence of a supposed girlfriend, Monika Dannemann. 
While the details will forever remain murky, Norman said Hendrix’s death was, “an avoidable accident. A totally avoidable accident.”
Elvis Presley became dependent on prescription pills in his later life before dying at age 42. (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
Elvis Presley left an indelible legacy on pop culture, changing music history with his blend of rockabilly, rhythm and blues and country.
After the height of his fame in the ‘50s and ’60s, Presley’s health was deteriorating in the 1970s, and he developed a dependence on prescription drugs to get through the day, all while maintaining a grueling schedule. He also turned to food for comfort and had gained a considerable amount of weight.
Sally A. Hoedel, author of “Elvis: Destined to Die Young,” told Fox News Digital in 2022 he struggled with immense pain in his final months.
“It’s hard for us to imagine [that he was in physical pain] because he once appeared so perfect on the outside that he couldn’t have been flawed on the inside,” she said. “[Those health] issues become more difficult to live with the more he tours, and he toured a great deal in those last several years. That added a lot of strain to this health.”
Presley died Aug. 6, 1977, at age 42, at his Graceland home in Memphis, Tennessee. 
Janis Joplin broke through as a female rock star, but struggled with insecurity and drugs. (Estate Of Keith Morris/Redferns/Getty Images)
Janis Joplin wowed the world with her signature voice and broke through the boys club of rock ‘n’ roll, but she was plagued by addiction and public scrutiny that impacted her self-esteem.
Author Holly George-Warren told Fox News in 2019 that the singer was haunted by self-doubt and insecurities despite her fame as a sought-after rock star. 
George-Warren said Joplin had a busy day leading up to her death and, despite having a man and a woman in her life, she returned to her hotel room in Los Angeles alone: “And so that’s when she ended up doing heroin.”
“It turned out to be super strong stuff that was so much purer than what she was used to. And she had stopped using four, five months before. Her tolerance was down. It was just a tragic mistake. She was so excited about how the sessions were going and so eager for the future.”
Joplin died just two weeks after fellow rocker Hendrix, also at age 27. Her second solo album, “Pearl,” was released posthumously and featured her only No. 1 single, “Me and Bobby McGee.”
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Jim Morrison famously dabbled in psychedelic drugs before his death. (Michael Montfort/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images)
Jim Morrison was known for his trippy lyrics and eccentric stage performances as the lead singer of The Doors as well as his experimentation with drugs like LSD.
But according to Rolling Stone, alcohol was Morrison’s main vice, and it took a toll on the singer, leading to violent onstage outbursts and an arrest in Florida for indecent exposure.
In 1971, at age 27, he was living in Paris with his girlfriend, Pamela Courson, who found him dead in their bathtub. No autopsy was performed, but the official cause of death was declared heart failure, per Rolling Stone.
The Doors guitarist Robby Krieger spoke with Fox News Digital about his bandmate in 2021, recalling that following Joplin and Hendrix’s deaths, Morrison had a sense he was next.
THE DOORS’ JIM MORRISON HAD ‘A FASCINATION WITH DEATH’ BEFORE PASSING AWAY AT 27, BANDMATE ROBBY KRIEGER SAYS
“We thought he was joking. But maybe he wasn’t. I think he really believed that he was not going to be here a long time. I don’t know if he had some knowledge that there was something wrong with him, or something like that,” Kreiger said.
He continued, “But … I’ve never seen anybody like him that just tempted fate, tempted death at many turns. Jimi Hendrix wasn’t like that. And Janis, too. I don’t think those guys had a death wish. I don’t know. Jim just had this fascination with death. He always wrote about it. So in a way, he probably got what he wanted.”
Brian Jones was a founding member of the Rolling Stones who later succumbed to drugs and alcohol. (Keystone/Getty Images)
Brian Jones was one of the original members of the Rolling Stones, but as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards began collaborating more and more, he was pushed into the background. 
Jones developed drug and alcohol problems as he receded further from leadership of the band and was let go from the group in early 1969.
“The fact that he was expecting it made it kind of easier, I guess,” Richards said later, per The Guardian. “He wasn’t surprised. I don’t really think he even took it all in. He was already up in the stratosphere.”
The guitarist was found dead in his pool at his home in Sussex. The coroner concluded it was “death by misadventure,” noting his liver and heart were enlarged by drug and alcohol consumption, per The Guardian. 
Jones was just 27. 
Jagger told Rolling Stone in 1995, “He had a huge contribution in the early days. He was very obsessed with it, which you always need. … He killed himself, but he should’ve been playing trad jazz weekends and teaching in school; he probably would have been better off.” 
Keith Moon, original drummer for The Who, had a rock star reputation that eventually caught up with him. (Michael Putland/Getty Images)
Keith Moon was the original drummer for 1960s rock legends The Who, who quickly became notorious for his larger-than-life rock star partying.
“I don’t think he ever knew happiness,” bandmate Pete Townshend told Rolling Stone in 1982. “He was one of the most difficult people to return love to. Because he was such an expansive guy, and you had to act in such a sensational, larger-than-life manner, you know? I mean, you didn’t say hello to Keith: it didn’t matter if he’d only been out of the studio for five minutes, when he came back in, he insisted on kissing everybody on the lips.”
In 1978, Moon died in his London apartment at the age of 32 from an overdose of clomethiazole tablets intended to treat his alcohol withdrawal.
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