04 November 2019
Newsdesk
Liam Payne started having therapy a couple of years after One Direction went on hiatus as he struggled to find his place in "the real world".
The 26-year-old singer found fame as one-fifth of the British boyband, which decided to go on hiatus in 2016. Since then, he's found success as a solo artist, but admitted during a new interview with GQ Hype that he went through a difficult patch which left him seeking help from a professional.
"I went into therapy a couple years after leaving (One Direction)," he explained. "I kind of went off the rails a little bit and just couldn't really figure out what was making me sad. So, you know, my team got somebody around to help me through a couple of different, difficult things that I was going through. I was just trying to figure myself out. It was just such a strange course through life, and then when the switch turns off you're left to your own devices..."
Liam added that he "went through this really weird retirement phase" after the band came to an end as he "didn't know what was going to happen". Going into further details about the tough stage he went through, he explained: "That first therapy session and being like, 'I don't even know what I like or anything about myself' – it was pretty scary stuff. I was afraid of how far my career was going and that it might go even further. You can say, 'Who is afraid of success?' But that’s what it entails sometimes. Success has got the better of me on more than one occasion. When I am losing I tend to concentrate more."
He then made the decision to go sober, and stayed teetotal for a year, while admitting he's still attempting to find the balance "between being a party animal and being an animal in the gym".
