Liam Payne’s sister Ruth has shared a deeply emotional tribute to her late brother on the first anniversary of his death, expressing that she has felt “paralyzed with grief” since his loss.
The One Direction star tragically died last October at the age of 31 after falling from the balcony of his third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
A year later, Ruth spoke out about her grief in a poignant open letter, reflecting on the pain that continues to shape her every day.
She wrote: “I underestimated sadness. Wow, did I underestimate it? I paralyzed it daily.” The sun.
“I thought I felt it before but I know that the losses before you were just so sad, you are the loss of my life, the only person I will miss on every occasion in my life. I considered my little brother to be there for the rest of my life. You didn’t have to die.”
Ruth described being haunted by a recurring nightmare that brought her back to Liam’s hotel room in his final moments.
“You can’t hear me screaming for you, my mind is tied to your last minutes on this earth, the uncounted minutes, the minutes I will never get answers to, the minutes that changed everything,” she said.
She said the pain had left Payne’s family feeling “turned off” and “irreparable”. She went on to explain that his absence affects her even before each day begins.
“You died, and that’s something that happened, but your absence is something that happens to me every day before I even open my eyes.”
In heartbreaking detail, Ruth shared what she would have done if she could have spent an extra five minutes with him, from going through their plans and exchanging jokes to just listening to the birds together.
“I’d like to tell you how proud I am of you, not just proud of your job, proud of the person you are,” she wrote. “We were leaving on ‘I love you, my friend’ and as I was driving away, you were standing there waving in my rearview mirror.”
She ended her message by reminding others that behind the headlines and public attention, there is a family still in mourning.
“While I’m still on my knees struggling to regain balance since my world burned down, and every time I try to take a step, something comes along and sets fire to all the progress I thought I’d made… It seems like everyone is only interested in the public aspect of this,” Ruth said.
“Unfortunately, some people seem more interested in the fame they can get from this, but on the human side, people need to remember when they talk, there’s a son without his father, parents without their child, and I’m lost without my brother. I love Liam always, at every age.”
Ruth continues to express her grief on social media as well.
Liam’s other sister, Nicola, also shared a message of her own, describing the day he died as “the day our lives changed forever and our hearts were left broken, with pieces of them missing.”
She reflected on the difficulty of facing even a small portion of the public scrutiny her brother endured, calling it “unbearable.”
Nicola, who is mum to Liam’s niece Fionn, has promised to keep his memory alive for his son Bear, who he shares with Cheryl Tweedy.
“We will make sure Bear knows all about his amazing dad, not just your accomplishments and success over the years, but all the things that make you who you are,” she wrote.
Clinging to the belief that Liam is still watching them, she added: “Sometimes I find comfort in believing that you can see the things I want to share with you, but other times it breaks my heart that we can no longer hear your life or tell you about ours.”