The loneliness of a celebrity's hotel room.

At the time of Liam Payne's death, the former boy band member had spent several days alone in a hotel room in Argentina.

Initially holidaying with his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, she had returned home after complaining about feeling homesick after their planned five-day trip had turned into a two-week vacation.

Hours before Payne fell from his third-story balcony, staff at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires had made an urgent 911 call.

"We've got a guest who has had too many drugs and alcohol and, well, when he is conscious he is trashing the entire room and we need you to send someone, please," the transcript of the 911 call said.

"We need you to send someone urgently because, well, I don't know whether his life may be in danger, the guest's life. He is in a room with a balcony and well, we're a little afraid… he's been here for two or three days."

After Payne's body was identified by police, authorities found his hotel room "in total disorder" with a smashed TV, broken items scattered, and the prescription drug clonazepam (brand name: Klonopin), and other over-the-counter drugs and alcohol found.

Liam Payne's story is tragic but, sadly, it's not entirely new.

Liam Payne experienced rocky years after his One Direction days. Image: Getty.

Famous people dying alone in their hotel rooms is something we hear about all too often, especially from drug or alcohol intoxication.

From Glee's Cory Monteith to pop culture icon Anna Nicole Smith, famous people have met similar fates of being found dead in their hotel room after overdosing. It's an especially common end for artists.

Some of the most iconic musicians have been found deceased in hotels, as recently as Whitney Houston and dating back to the likes of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

In 2018, both Anthony Bourdain and Avicii were found unresponsive in their hotel rooms.

It's an environment that might seem random to non-celebrities, but for the rich and famous, their hotel room is often where they spend all their time — simultaneously a safe haven and a prison.

For Liam Payne, from the age of 16 when he joined One Direction on X Factor, he left his home and family and went on tour.

Again, he was just 16 years old when this began, with the other boys in One Direction at similar ages, the oldest Louis Tomlinson was just 18.

These teenage boys would experience a meterotic rise that would last for almost five years, four world tours, and over 500 shows played in almost every corner of the globe.

And due to the band's fans almost unparalleled level of hysteria, these five teenagers would come to call each city's hotel home, as they were unable to explore the towns and live their normal lives.

"The day the band ended, I was like, 'Thank the Lord,'" Payne later reflected on The Diary of a CEO in 2021. "I know a lot of people are going to be mad at me for saying that, but I needed to stop or it would kill me."

Payne admitted that he "didn't like myself very much" at the beginning of One Direction, sharing that he turned to "pills and booze" to numb the pain.

Watch Liam Payne's X Factor audition. Post continues after video.

His story is one with not too many parallels, but one person who can relate to this level of overwhelming fame is another British celebrity, Harry Potter's titular actor Daniel Radcliffe.

Radcliffe has spoken about some of his experiences when he was just a boy.

"Crazy s**t happened to us as a family very young," Radcliffe said on Off Camera with Sam Jones. "The thing that did, you know, burrow its way in there and was really unpleasant was getting booed."

Like Payne, Radcliffe eventually turned to alcohol.

"The quickest way to forget about the fact that you were being watched was to get very drunk," he said. "Then as you get very drunk, you become aware, 'Oh, people are watching more now because now I'm getting very drunk, so I should probably drink more to ignore that more.'"

Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson became household names as child stars. Image: Getty.

Three years before his death, Payne spoke on The Diary of a CEO podcast about how the days of touring with One Direction had 'really f***ed him up.'

"My dad said it from day one — lonely hotel rooms, man — getting locked in that room is not fun when you've been exposed," the late singer said.

But sadly, hotel rooms were the only place that the One Direction members could be kept safe, but these rooms were filled with temptations.

"When we were in the band, the best way to secure us because of how big it got was just lock us in our rooms. And of course, what's in the room? Mini bar. So at a certain point, I thought, 'Well, I'm going to have a party for one and that just seemed to carry on for many years in my life," he said.

People talking about it being odd Liam was hanging out in the lobby instead of his room, have to remember Liam has talked openly about when in 1D, management would lock the boys in their rooms to “secure” them & he was locked in his room with his mini bar pic.twitter.com/26ec4yo8m6

— Erin ×͜× ✨LTdefenseless28✨ (@tdefenseless28) October 20, 2024

"I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be... I mean, I don't even know if I've hit it yet."

The loneliness that comes from touring is something Justin Bieber knows all too well. Bieber signed his first record deal at the age of 15 before going on to tour relentlessly into his 20s.

"You get lonely, you know, when you're on the road. People see the glam and the amazing stuff, but they don't know the other side. This life can rip you apart," he told NME in 2015.

"I feel isolated. You're in your hotel room and there are fans all around, paparazzi following you everywhere, and it gets intense. When you can't go anywhere or do anything alone you get depressed. I would not wish this upon anyone."

Two years earlier, another teen-star-turned-pop-star, Selena Gomez, expressed a similar sentiment about touring.

"Tours are a really lonely place for me," she told Vogue in 2017. "My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn't good enough, wasn't capable. I felt I wasn't giving my fans anything, and they could see it — which, I think, was a complete distortion."

Another celebrity who got her start in her teens, Billie Eilish, has conflicting feelings about becoming famous so young.

"I don't mean this in a necessarily negative way, but I sort of lost my teenage years, because this all started when I was 13," she told Dutch channel 3voor12.

"Someone was asking if, like, 'How much of it's miserable and how much of it's not?' I was just like, 'It's fifty-fifty. Half of it's horrible and half of it's unbelievably amazing and completely priceless.'"

On the day of Liam's passing and before he returned to his hotel room for the last time, the singer was seen in the hotel lobby.

Onlookers claimed that Payne attempted to strike up conversations with other guests, as he was heard venting he was "f**ked up" because he "used to be in a boy band" only minutes before he died.

Witnesses claim that while in the lobby, Payne was seen smashing a laptop and passed out before being escorted back to his hotel room, a room like the countless others he's called home since he was 16 years old.

If you think you may be experiencing depression or another mental health problem, please contact your general practitioner or in Australia, contact Lifeline 13 11 14 for support or beyondblue at 1300 22 4636.

Feature image: Getty.