Liam Payne

Liam Payne

Birth name Liam James Payne
Born 29 August 1993
Wolverhampton, England, UK

He rose to fame as a member of the band One Direction. He is the son of Karen, a nursery nurse, and Geoff Payne, a fitter. He has two older sisters, Nicola and Ruth.Payne was born three weeks early, getting sick frequently. Until the age of four, Payne had regular tests done in hospital as doctors noticed one of his kidneys was scarred and dysfunctional. To help cope with the pain, he had 32 injections in his arm in the morning and evening as a child. As a student, Payne was heavily involved in sports, particularly cross country running. Payne originally joined the Wolverhampton and Bilston Athletics Club to pursue his running career. After failing to make the English National Team for the 2012 Olympic Games, he was placed on the reserve list.

As he was dealing with bullying from some older students in secondary school, he took up boxing lessons at the age of 12. Payne completed 11 GCSEs at St Peter's Collegiate School before moving on to study music technology at Wolverhampton College's Paget Road campus.

Payne was first introduced to the world of show business at age 12 as a member of the Pink Productions Theatre Company, even appearing as Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever. Payne had previously performed in front of a crowd of 26,000 during a Wolverhampton Wanderers football match.

Payne began dating singer Cheryl in 2016. On 22 March 2017, Cheryl welcomed the couple's first child, a son.