Liam Payne's song Live Forever was about hotel balcony fall
Samuel Preston - the songwriter behind Liam Payne song Live Forever - has confirmed the track was about his own brush with death after falling off a hotel balcony in a "set of circumstances" which mirrored the One Direction star's tragic fate.
The songwriter behind Liam Payne's Live Forever has revealed the track was written about a tragic fall from a hotel balcony.
The Ordinary Boys frontman Samuel Preston, 44, wrote the song about his own brush with death when he took a tumble from the second floor of a hotel in Denmark in 2017 after consuming too much Champagne and he gave the song to Liam, who went on to release it in 2019 - five years before the One Direction star plunged to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina in 2024.
Now Preston has admitted he was stunned by the chilling "circumstances" of Liam's death which mirrored the lyrics he wrote, telling the Guardian newspaper: "[I gave the song to Liam] and then he falls off a balcony and dies. There are certain things that happen in your life where you just cannot believe this is a real set of circumstances."
In the interview, Preston went on to talk about Liam, describing him as a "very funny, sweet, kind guy. Misunderstood. A great talent."
He added: "I saw a lot of him in me, because we both suffered. I massively wish I’d been able to do more. But as for some kind of intervention, I don’t think I [had that role] in his life."
Preston also wishes Liam, 31, had taken the lyrics from Live Forever as a warning and maybe the tragedy of his death could have been prevented.
He said: "[Live Forever] was me trying to say: 'Look, man, this thing happened to me.' But it’s hard to give people advice if they’re not ready to receive it."
Preston suffered several bones and a punctured a lung in the 2017 fall and he was initially told by doctors that he would never walk again. He spent six months in a wheelchair and underwent operations to fix several metal plates into his body to fix his injuries.
He went on to make a full recovery, but was plunged into drug addiction after becoming hooked on painkillers in the aftermath of the accident.
Preston described that time in his life as full of "dread and horror" but he eventually managed to kick his addiction issues after a painful few days when he went came off the pills.
