Ex-One Direction member Louis Tomlinson opens up about losing Liam Payne on The Diary of a CEO

Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett recently sat down with former One Direction member Liam Tomlinson to have a chat which lasted close to two hours. From feeling like the "weak link" in the band to going on stage right after losing his mum and his relationship with late Liam Payne, Louis bared his heart out.

Louis Tomlinson opens up about losing Liam Payne on Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO

Louis said that he was in a car in Los Angeles, dropping his son Freddy off at school, when he heard the tragic news of his death.

Louis recalled Niall telling him the tragic news. “I think Niall said something like, ‘Have you seen the news?’ and I knew as soon as he said that,” Louis said. “I kinda knew what he might’ve meant.”

“My 150 percent wasn’t nearly enough,” Louis said. “It’s my own arrogance thinking that I could’ve helped, really. Because it was so much deeper than what I could’ve done for him. He was definitely struggling at that time in his life.”

He described Liam’s death as “unjust” and “frustrating”.

“It was really, really, impossibly difficult for me to deal with losing Liam,” Louis added.

He admitted he had “naively” believed he could cope with grief, having already lost his mother, Johannah Deakin, to leukemia in 2016, and his younger sister, Félicité Tomlinson, to an overdose in 2019.

“It’s very different. I’ve never lost a friend before," he said.

Louis explains that Liam was grossly misunderstood

Louis began by recalling how he and Liam rarely saw eye to eye because their paths in the industry were so different. While Liam had been working hard to break into music since the age of 14, Louis admitted he was more laid-back. He explained that Liam approached things from a very “sensible point of view,” having invested “so much more time and energy” into his career.

"[Liam] was vastly experienced before any of us had done anything," said Louis, and added that they all had a lot of respect for him.

"Liam just kept everything going," he said, even though Louis was way more "disruptive".

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