Louis Tomlinson speaks to Rolling Stone about Liam Payne’s death

I appreciate he actually knew Liam and he’ll have his own complicated feelings about him, but I feel like revising the history around Liam being misunderstood and him not doing anything out of malice undercuts his attitude towards women towards the end of his life. He was a physically and emotionally abusive partner who harassed his ex and was actively interacting with underage girls sending nudes. He was a complicated person who was addicted to drugs, but I think making him into a martyr (much like the British press did when Caroline Flack died) discredits what he put those women through.

I have so much respect for Louis and wish him nothing but the best. He deserves only good things after all the loss he has faced.

wasn’t liam making outright racist comments about zayn on that logan paul podcast? i wonder if zayn feels he was “misunderstood” too 🤔

Listen, obviously Liam did not deserve to die and he was not totally beyond redemption, but he was also not “misunderstood” because he “desperately wanted to be liked”. The way he treated women was awful and while he should still be here and able to at least partly atone for his behaviour, the fact remains that he never did and he died at a stage in his life when he was still actively treating women like shit.

This included allegations of harassment and of domestic violence. Wasn’t there also a claim that he forced one of his partners to have an abortion?

This is not “oh he cheated on his partners and he sometimes said daft things.” He physically harmed women, before we even get to the emotional abuse.

I’m not expecting Louis to shit-talk his dead friend, of course. But please don’t bullshit us either.

He received a lot of very fair criticism. He was a troubled guy, but he also caused his fair share of harm to other people and they don’t deserve to have this fact erased from the public record.

It’s fine to say you miss your friend. It’s very sad he isn’t here anymore. He died a very sad death. But we don’t need to sanitise reality to be sad.