Liam Payne

He started dating his old schoolmate, Sophia Smith in June 2013.The couple split in October 2015.

He has two dogs, an Alaskan Klee Kai and a Great Dane.

Liam Payne was born on August 29, 1993 in Wolverhampton, England, to Geoff Payne, a fitter, and Karen Payne, a nurse. He has two elder sisters, Nicola and Ruth.

He was born three weeks premature leading to several ailments and frequent visits to the hospital. One of his kidneys was dysfunctional and as a child he had to take 32 injections in his arm everyday to deal with the pain.

He studied at St. Peter's Collegiate School, Wolverhampton. In his childhood days, he was interested in both athletics and music. He trained as a runner at Wolverhampton and Bilston Athletics Club. However, he failed to get selected for the 2012 Olympic Games’ English National Team and decided to pursue music more seriously.

By the age of 12, he was singing and acting with Pink Productions, a local theatre group. This enabled him to perform in front of a real audience instead of family. After graduating from St. Peter's, he took admission atCity of Wolverhampton College to study music technology.

In 2008, at the age of 14, Liam Payne auditioned for the television talent competition ‘The X Factor’. He performed well enough and reached the penultimate stage of the show ‘Judges' Houses’. However, judge Simon Cowell was of the opinion that young Payne was unprepared for the demands of a live show competition and encouraged him to return in the next series.

By the next year, X Factor had raised their application age to 16, making him ineligible to audition. However, he continued to train as a vocalist in the meantime.

In 2010, he returned to The X Factor and auditioned with Julie London's classic song ‘Cry Me a River’. The audience and judge Simon gave him a standing ovation for his performance. All four judges at the audition approved his selection.

At the ‘Bootcamp’ round, he sang ‘Stop Crying Your Heart Out’ and won the approval of three judges. However, Simon though this performance was one-dimensional and on the suggestion of guest judge Nicole Scherzinger, he was clubbed with four other participants to form a five member band that qualified for the ‘Groups’ category.

The band thus formed reached the grand finale of the show. However, they could manage to win the third spot only. The group came to be known as ‘One Direction’.

One Direction’s debut single ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ topped the UK Singles Chart on release and later sold over 5 million copies globally. It is one of the best-selling singles of all time.