Inside Liam Payne’s chaotic time in Aus

British singer and former One Direction member Liam Payne has died at the age of 31 after falling from his hotel balcony in Argentina.

According to Argentinian outlets, the British singer, who rose to fame as one-fifth of boy band One Direction, fell from the balcony of his third-storey room at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires.

Payne’s rise to fame began in 2008 when he auditioned for the X-Factor at just 14 years old, with his star soaring when placed into what would become One Direction on the show two years later.

During the height of their fame, One Direction visited Australia four times: the first in 2012, where they also attended the Logies, then in 2013 and 2014, where they performed at the ARIA awards, before returning for a final tour in 2015.

Payne returned to Australia in 2018 for the Everest horse race in Sydney.

Remarkably, the former 1D member, who once said “geography was never my strongest subject”, claimed in 2018 that he had never entered the country before.

This wasn’t the first awkward gaffe Payne had with Australia; every trip Payne took Down Under had been controversial in some way.

His first awkward comment came in 2012 when Payne visited a sanctuary in Brisbane and claimed to be “genuinely scared” while holding a koala out of fears he’d catch chlamydia.

“This is worrying. I’d have never picked the thing up if I’d known,” he told The Sun at the time.

The second incident occurred in 2013, during the Adelaide leg of the band’s Take Me Home tour, when Payne spotted a flurry of fans standing outside the band’s hotel.

In a panic, the British singer sent a tweet and warned them to keep away from the grass, which he said was a “snake habitat”.

“It’s not worth it someone’s gunna get hurt,” he wrote.

When fans failed to move out of the way, the frustrated singer sent a follow-up tweet: “Are u not reading what I’m saying its a SNAKE HABITAT TURN AROUND.”

But it was his final visit to Australia in 2018 that had people talking the most.

After completing his set at the Everest horse race in Sydney, the British singer claimed he had never visited the country before.

“I’m sorry the weather has been so bad … I’ve never been to Australia before,” he told fans.

Australia wasn’t the only country Payne forgot he visited, also claiming in an online stream that he had never stepped foot in the Philippines despite performing in the country’s capital Manila in 2015.

Following outcry from his fans, Payne later corrected himself: “Wow apologies to the Philippines my geography was never my strongest subject. How could I forget beautiful Manila!!”