Liam Payne first registered on the pop radar as a fresh-faced 14-year-old, trying out for The X Factor in 2008. "I should really be concentrating on my [school] work but I just think about singing too much," he said before his first audition, his Wolverhampton accent and thick fringe front and centre.

Payne, who was one of the group’s standout singers, fell from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires, emergency services officials said.