The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Liam Payne Opens Up About His Darkest Moments, Failed Relationships & Entrepreneurship

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

Liam Payne has been subjected to the intensity of the spotlight from the age of just 14, when he found global fame following his entry in to the X Factor’s seventh series, and the dizzying rise once he exited as one fifth of the group One Direction. The band was cemented as a phenomenon overnight-their success and the surrounding hype was likened to that of a modern-day Beatles at time of their debut single release. They became the first UK group ever to have their debut album reach number one in the United States. There probably are not many who are better placed than Liam to discuss instantaneous fame and the churning of its 'machine’. Liam has gone from a teen star to a fully-fledged solo artist who has taken ownership of his career in terms of its creative direction and elevated further with a strong signature pop/rnb style and a string of hits both here and abroad. He’s had his music streamed over a total of 2bn times. However, there is much more to him than the image of simply being a teen heartthrob or sugary popstar. The X Factor may be notorious for churning out ‘instant’ popstars but Liam clearly has a deep appreciation for music and the process behind its production. He studied as a musician prior to the start of his mainstream career and has grown as a gifted songwriter, with 40+ writing and co-writing credits to his name. He has previously said that he is accustomed to writing and recording entire albums in six weeks or less, and his evolution on personal and creative levels has no doubt been accelerated by his exposure. This conversation today isn’t your normal “reunion chat” we speak about so much in a lot of depth, everything from his relationships, his darkest times and everything in-between. Its open, its honest and its inspiring. During our conversation Liam mentioned it was one of the best chats he’d had in a while and I felt that, I hope you do too. Follow Liam: Twitter - https://twitter.com/LiamPayne Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/liampayne Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. There are very few people, maybe just the five of them, on planet Earth that have gone through what my next guest has gone through over the last decade. Very, very few people on planet Earth that can tell you the stories he can tell you and talk to you about the lessons he's learned. Liam Payne is a miraculous, inspiring, complex, very honest, very vulnerable, very open book. Today he's going to tell you about things that he probably shouldn't say and topics that he probably shouldn't talk about. But just imagine, imagine being catapulted into stardom at 14 years old and becoming what many consider to be the modern day Beatles. He toured the world with one direction. They had their ups, their downs, their mental health crises, their scandals, their relationships, and everything in between. You know, if I was 16 years old and you asked me what I wanted to be, if I could,

you know, dream up my life, I'd probably say professional football player or being in a boy band and traveling the world. Seems like a life that we'd all give everything to have. But what you're going to hear today is very different and it might just change your mind. It certainly changed mine. So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Liam, crazy, crazy year, society, all of us have had with this whole lockdown situation. Place I wanted to start is just to ask how it's been for you it has been interesting i feel like i got the lockdown the first depressive part of lockdown a lot later than everybody else because our work went through the roof and basically it was interesting because i had to learn styling makeup hair all these

things that i wouldn't usually do when I'm with my team. And I lost everyone because you couldn't have anyone close contact. So I just had me and a camera guy that was staying with me. So every job was like, I mean, we even had one day

where we set up our own green screen and we set the green screen up from 1pm until 10 and then recorded till five o'clock in the morning. So it was like a whole day. So we were busier than ever. And then we started doing these online shows, which went really great with a company called Veeps which was good and then i

stopped working which i thought was going to be really good for me because i was tired and it was actually the worst thing in the world for me when you say you stopped working describe your day at that point um i mean i was just finding myself on the sofa for the whole day just watching random net i've seen everything on netflix on your own uh no my partner was there at the time okay yeah it was it was it was wild and it was dark because you can't really go anywhere you don't really know what you're doing and and and and i felt like my career was kind of in a funny place at that point as well and how i was agreeable with it at that time as well if that makes sense Are you the type of person that needs to be kept busy?

I think so. I think I've had a crash course this last year in learning to have my own time. Because I mean, imagine from about the age of 16, 17, we're day sheet every day. So when you don't have a day sheet, it's like, what the hell do I do? And then the other part of it's like, you don't really learn what you enjoy from that point either so it was that that was quite difficult in lockdown because you have so much time to yourself and then it was like i saw something the other day about toxic productivity did you see this i've seen this obviously they've got a new ism for everything but it actually made

sense to me if i'm not doing something that's that's productive i feel like i'm going backwards so then i'm trying to make i'm trying to force moves and I suppose that was one of the things I think I learned most about myself I don't have to be doing something every day to feel good about myself where does that come from that do you think that need to feel like you're moving forward or it feels like backward motion I have no idea I think I'm just quite driven in that sense have you always been like that since before one direction you know i think we just always worked like i started i was first on tv at 14 so that's young it was 20 and audience specs i think at that point was like 20 million people which is wild so i was like 14 years old so from then on my life's just been like doing the same thing over and over and over again up

to this point so i don't know at times you fall out of love with it and i think that that trying to find you know and also you're not under any impression this isn't going to stop at some point like a a lifespan for a average pop star i've been i've outlived most lifespans with that sort of thing which has been amazing really really cool and i think part of that's probably from starting so young but you know it's going to end at some point so you always want to find something else that you're good at so it's kind of safety cushion this is what investing has been my godsend in that because I started that really young as well and trying to think about how I would do this or how I would do that asking like you know like our old managers and people like that what they invest in and stuff like that which kind of makes me feel

safer and does that that comes from a plate like mild paranoia that this might go someday right 100 it's like doomsday prophecy like you know do you worry a lot generally uh i think i did up until the last few months i mean having a lot of time at home i think a lot of people had this same sort of thing alcohol was just really it was getting earlier and earlier easier and easier to go to

and for me I don't know I think there's a slight little bit of social anxiety as well in it that you know it was already hard sometimes to go out places for the thought that you might like

get papped or whatever there's always that extra level of stress so for me i've always been quite withdrawn so talking about lockdown so you go through that sort of depressive period i think we all went through that and i think um for me what i kept thinking about is like if you just um go with the lockdown you're like someone like me would just probably like hang around bed on my lap you know my laptop what i had to do was like proactively steve get up and do something today go put your shoes on motherfuckers you know i mean but then the thing what i found about that was sometimes you ain't superman and you're gonna have a bad day and my thing is if i don't set out what i'm aiming to do that day then i

become more depressive that makes sense but it's just like i think the main thing for me i mean i've always called it like a small victories thing and that's why i love the gym because if i've at least been to the gym that day then i've done something but then i started like branched out more that was called a family member you know i spent some time with my son make sure i get facetiming because it was hard the first point of it we couldn't see each other it was the longest i haven't seen my son in a long time um which was difficult but then it was like as long as I've done one of those things in the day, then it doesn't matter if I didn't do anything else. And it's like, what I found more than anything,

and this with alcohol, with all this stuff, it's like boundaries. There were no boundaries. So, you know, if you're on Zoom, you can quite easily hide that you might be a little bit tipsy

at the point you shouldn't be. So it was like creating your own boundaries, creating your own routines. And that's where I think everybody struggled the most without routine and i noticed you had a dog here yeah which at the moment that's one of my things i think i'm definitely going to get a dog because i need routine i need it so you start you start drinking more and more during the lockdown you realize you get you're aware i put on so much weight i I was eating badly and kind of describing it as a bulking period. It was a dirty bulk.

Don't worry about it. I'm doing it for a movie role. It's all good. Yeah, that's the best new excuse. If anyone asks you to put weight, yeah, it's for a role. It's coming out in 2022. Yeah, and I put a lot of weight on.

And what got me, I did one performance on TV. It was with the BAFTAs actually. And I was disappointed in myself, but like, I was always a pretty sporty kid and then kept moving. And like, I didn't look how I wanted to look.

You know what I mean? There wasn't anything wrong with that, but just in your own self, you know how you feel about it. And obviously they say the camera is 10 pounds. It definitely did. And I saw myself for the first time and I was like, oh my God,

like I've completely let myself go in this. And it was fine. I kind of needed it. And actually it's been the best outcome and I was like, oh my God, like I've completely let myself go in this. And it was fine. I kind of needed it. And actually it's been the best outcome for me because I feel so much more secure in myself now. And I feel like I know where I'm at again, which is good. Have you struggled to maintain consistency with the gym? I know I have.

I did. I mean, training partners is the best one for that, you know, and each of you put in a session together and throw it in different moves because then you're doing something that's a bit different you know i mean we recently my training partner i got to like a point where we're like a stalemate with the stuff that we're doing so then we we started like branching out to different gyms and they have different kit and then you know um but i'm fair i'm fairly good with keeping myself on the go with it um i mean like i, the only problem for me was alcohol.

You can't train and drink and anything. You can't do it all at once. You're going to be a rock star. You're going to be a star. Yeah. That's your choice. And do you think you've gotten a bit of a look sort of addicted personality in that regard where you'll get into something and just go all the way? I mean,

as an, as an addict, I want to say no, but I know I definitely do. Yeah. A hundred percent. I think, but there's a lot worse things

to be addicted to than looking after yourself. So, yeah. What's been the upside for you? A lot of people listening to this, especially coming out of lockdown now, there's a lot of people that weren't able to go to the gyms

because they were closed. And now that, you know, some people just need that little bit of a push to understand what the value is of the gym. And what's the value of the gym been in your life? I think... Because you're going twice today. The value of the gym. And what's the value of the gym been in your life? I think-

Because you're going twice today. The value of the gym. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't call the first one, the first one's more of like a wake up. Let's call it a vinyasa, like a yoga type. The first day I went to the gym in lockdown, I went and looked at the gym

because I was like, if I go in there and start moving around and throwing stuff and whatever else, then I'm not going to want to go the next day. And you have to slowly build it up. Don't go in and think you need to do 45 minutes because they're running a magazine that they said this. There's no quick route.

For me, you need three months for any significant change that you have. And then it's like start at 20 minutes, 15 minutes. Just go and feel it out. And then you'll find after a while, the exercises, you're like, oh my God, I only have five more minutes in here and I need another five minutes. And guess what? You can have them. So then it's slowly like we've got we're up to you know an hour an hour and 10 minutes now so it's like from starting at 15 20 minutes but for me it's just like i say it's being able to get into bed at night and have that small victory

to know at least i did this and it was for me it wasn't for anybody else that's i think that's important and you're not doing it to try and get a sick i mean everyone's doing it low-key to try and get six-pack but you're doing it because it's a lifestyle decision for your yeah i mean i recently started jujitsu and it's for me i want to be able to do what a lot of these guys are doing like the funny thing jujitsu is super humbling because you just get thrown around like it's like a tiger eating a gazelle or something. I mean, it's wild. So it's like, as soon as it happens, and I was always quite a small dude. I've never been like a big guy.

I mean, even when I did my underwear commercial, I was still like 80, I think I was 75 kilos, which is super light, right? So when I'm in the gym, people are like throwing me over here. And I'm like, oh, I'm going that way today. And then I'm over here. And it's like, so I put, I did want to put some weight on, but I put too much weight on at one point. I was like, I went out for leather, but it's more for the fitness side and the jujitsu side that I'm training as hard as I am. I wanted to ask you some advice. I've been announced as a dragon

on Dragon's Den. How do you feel about that, by the way? It's pretty cool. It's cool. You're a dragon. Some kids want to grow up being a dragon. You are a dragon. Yeah, I know. I watched it when I was 12. So it came out when I was 12. I used to watch it and I've never missed an episode.

Wow, that doesn't surprise me at all. And I said to the team, I used to pretend I was a dragon, sit there, pause the TV, give my verdict at 13 years old. I love it. All this stuff. The bit I wanted to ask your advice on is when it was announced you know i had my little moment 15 seconds where like all of the press talk about you your twitter blows up lots of attention what advice would you give to me about dealing with this kind of noise because you i mean there's not many people in planet earth that have dealt with noise and like that right yeah um

i think don't it's a really fine line between getting too wrapped up in what's going on and not being wrapped up enough in it if you know what i mean really i think you put i think you know the things that hurt you the most because you know they're honest so when someone says something you like if they hurt you then you hurt you a lot then you know there's some truth in it because it hurt you if it's ridiculous you just go that was funny as if they said that you know what i mean really so i think there's a there's a fine line to tread with it and i mean i've gone through eras where i was such like a little clap back attitude driven you responding where as soon as someone would say something i'd be like right well then let's go at you and then

i was i mean i was a bit mean and nasty at points actually it was a bit bad but when you're a teen growing up in it and people are like basically bullying you and they get paid for it it's like that's a bit outrageous so i'm gonna have my say who's got the biggest mountain you know what i mean but then it's like someone said to me over time it's like you know if someone says something about me in the press in this country and then i say something about them it ends up on e-news and then they've made america i didn't get anywhere so it's like don't bring people up to your level if you don't think you, unless you absolutely have to.

And one thing I would say, don't lose your phone doing this, notes. If someone pisses you off, write a note about it as if you were writing them a letter and then let it go. Just don't send it. And then it gets all your, what you would tweet out, but you don't say it. That was the best thing I ever did. That was the best thing i ever did that was the best thing i ever did really yeah so pop open your notes then

i just remembered one imagine fucking hell no it's crazy because you read stuff and i was saying to you you know before we started filming like i've got a baby apparently and a wife and then you know congratulations no i know exactly you're doing really well yeah and i just thought you know it's crazy that um there's not a high regard for truth in what do you know what i was actually on the way into this i wanted to speak about this because obviously there's a lot in the in the world at the moment about freedom of speech and the press freedom of speech which i agree with right we don't need to dictate laws my only problem is and my biggest problem around corona was the fact that the media were allowed to twist our thinking about corona as much as they wanted to and they're still

doing it now but the fear mongering isn't helping anyone you know and these people aren't sat there i know i've just written a great article my boss is going to promote me oh yeah but you just decreased the value of the pound so your wages that you think are worth more are now worth less well it's a struggling industry right i just don't get it i'm like if it's a medical thing and it's the world that is in trouble maybe there should have to be something in place that says this is true or not that they have to put a disclaimer and say you should take advice from your local government bullshit we all read you for advice and you are offering us a disservice by telling us non-truths about stuff. I just don't get it. I get that there's a hairdressers account for me for people going,

oh my God, I can't believe what that Liam Payne's done this week. What's he done now? You know, I get that. But for Corona, we don't need to be going, oh yeah, have you read the thing about this new variant that's come from over the border? Yeah, I can't believe it. Like someone from America phoned me the other night and they're like, are you going to be able to come here soon? I'm like, no, I ain't. No, no chance. But we don't,

none of us know. We're all confused because we're being spouted fear, which I just think is terrible. Social media doesn't help either because there's screenshots knocking around WhatsApp groups

saying all sorts of... Yeah, I mean, as much as this technology advancing on us, it's like the slow road. I mean, it's almost like the coins thing at the moment with the Bitcoins. Like there's some coins that are actually seriously there

to do a job. And then there's like the fuck Elon Musk coin, which does nothing but just disrespect Elon Musk. It's worth like 5 billion. It's actually nuts. You said earlier, you made a comment, you said that um your partner at the

time in referring to lockdown does that mean you are i am indeed you're single yeah me and you both where we going no i'm saying to myself i feel like i feel like more than

anything at this point i'm more disappointed in myself for the keep on hurting people that annoys me i've just been not been very good at relationships and i know what my pattern of things is with relationships i feel at this point i'm just not very good at them so i just need to like work on myself before i put myself onto somebody else and i feel that's what you know that's where i got to my last relationship i just wasn't given a very good version of me anymore that i didn't appreciate

and i didn't like being and i can honestly say that I feel better out of it I didn't feel good for doing what what I did but it had to happen I mean that's the corniest way of saying it was best for both of us like whatever cool nice story bro but it just feels like that very self-aware for you to know that you uh oh yeah no I know it a problem. So I need to sort myself out. And I already feel good. So it's got me more concentrated, you know, and I hope she's happy. What is it you've discovered about yourself in relationships that you're trying to work on?

Do you know what? I mean, one of our old managers went to therapy from being a manager of One Direction. So if you can imagine how that feels, like the rest of us definitely need some. And for me, most part, I was really regressing from therapy because everyone was pushing me into it, which is the worst thing you can do.

Like it's almost like becoming sober, for instance. You have to want to be sober to start with, not people taking your toys away and you going, oh my God. So it kind of felt like that. Whereas this time I kind of threw myself into it, even though I didn't want, didn't really this time I kind of threw myself into it, even though I didn't want, didn't really want to inside, I threw myself into it, made my own choices. And I think for me, my life's been so controlled to a point, day sheets, security guards, you know,

anything, and it's all, everybody else is dictating puppet master crap over the top of your life. Then you just get to a point where it's like, you have to take some control about yourself. And until I started to do that with my life, i was living for everybody else and i'm a complete people pleaser anyway so it was like nothing in my life was about serving myself which then that just put me in a bad place and finding enjoyment from other stuff that i don't need what did because i've always considered therapy for a bunch of reasons and the thing is it's still such like a taboo kind of phrase and i get it i do get it i was i mean i was on the phone to louis from my band talking about it today and it's like there was one moment last week and and i mean my manager

is my best friend he's been saying to me for a long time you'll have that one awakening in the middle of it where you'll think about stuff and i i mean i hate words like awakening and i hate this like hollywood perception of like reflective work what the fuck is that you know what i mean but i get it but at the same point i'm like i don't know you keep it for you but it's like i had this one moment that that i found and i was like oh my god that's just unlocked so many truths about me and it was so insignificant something that happened when i was younger and it was so to me it was like a family joke but now i'm like oh my, I've been living my whole life

as that character. And yeah, wild, wild. You'll love it. Scary. Really scary. You don't know what you're going to find.

It's like opening a book. No, that's it. It's wild. But I'm so glad that I, one, went through what I went through this year. And two,

you know, I think this year's forced something out of all of us. And for me, it forced me to really look at my life and go, what the F are you doing like grow up and that was the point and you're still trying to work on that but did you regressed

from therapy yeah i always turned away from it and i was always like oh i don't i don't need therapy i'll sort myself out you know your own worst enemy at that point i'm really keen to understand what makes you a difficult you know specifically what makes you a difficult person today i ask this question because i'm difficult oh my god yeah pull a few people in it are we what makes you a difficult, you know, specifically what makes you a difficult person to date? I ask this question because I'm difficult to date. Oh my God. Do you want me to pull a few people in here? Are we getting a special guest? Coming on down,

his best friend. Oh my God. Every ex-girlfriend, we've got them behind the curtain. Now that would be a weird room. Can you imagine? That drops down and they're all there. Oh my God.

Hi, I dated him for three weeks. That would be a strange room. I'd be out. What would be the consistent consistent theme what as to why you're difficult today if i think i think my problem i struggle to be on my own sometimes really yeah i struggle to be on my own and i think i dive in and out of relationships too quickly and i've not had to spend enough time on my own to really learn about myself if that makes sense

i honestly just need a minute i need to check myself but i'm really i'm really keen so you needed to spend some time on your own to kind of understand yourself because in a relationship context you find that you kind of you're in and you're out a little bit too much is that what you're saying yeah and i i don't know i think the biggest problem we have i'm proper perfectionist terrible terrible. So when it comes down to relationships, I'm always trying to, at the start of the relationship, as we all do, you put out this complete false character.

Like I might as well go in costume at this point. I'm like putting out something that is not there. The person is absent from the room. It's like they tag teamed on the way in. Oh, it's you for this bit. Yeah, I'll join in later on. And I just, yeah, I just need to stop doing that.

And then kind of like one encompassing someone else's life with your crap rather than like just doing your thing and laying out your stall from day one that's my biggest problem i feel for myself i don't lay out my stall i'm like willing to bend to someone else's store and then i'm annoyed at why they don't like what i like amen so then i'm like oh okay but if i just laid out the stall early on and like yeah i go up at 5 a.m and go for a run well how are we gonna deal with that so it's either in or it's not you know what i mean it's not not not to not compromise because some things you'll be like okay that annoys you fine but yeah for me i don't i don't do that i lay out a completely different it's like a walworth when

you wanted an artist or you know artist. I've really debated that. I'm going to personally, especially recently, because the girl I was into is very into everything that I'm not into. Like she's into like horoscopes and like, I don't know. What's wrong with us? I don't know. So I'm there like fucking looking at horoscopes being like, no, yeah. Because you're trying to make.

Spiritual people scare me. But at the start of a relationship, you become like them they become more like you and then as a couple of weeks months pass you just regress to actually to who you actually are well you almost like i feel like i hide resentments from people sometimes and i'm like something annoys me and i'm like i know it's fine but inside i'm thinking jesus christ i wish she didn't do that and then it's like then over time i'm like every little thing starts creeping in and I did this in my job really badly because I would bend to my

job and let my job overtake things that I didn't like doing, Steve will actually be on this like videos for stuff and rather than going no until one day I just was like I hate everything and now it's almost gone back the other way now I've had this little reset that like I'm starting to call people in to do what I want to do rather than bending to everybody else's stuff you know and this you'll

probably experience the same in this you're pulled every which way you know and it's always about impressing whoever's behind the lens yeah whoever's in the audience so i find i feel conversations with crap that i'm saying that doesn't really help me because i'll go home thinking why the hell did i say that yeah what now i'm that guy oh my god you know and then and then it's like but I was saying it because I thought it would entertain the other person it wasn't about me stupid it's really fascinating that you're so self-aware of all these forces at play because it feels like you've spent a long time really analyzing and looking at your behavior I think that that can that can have its benefits and it can have its problems as well I think I'm like overcritical at points, but you know, you can't win everything.

Being a perfectionist. Yeah. It's an issue. Yeah. Talk to me about what that means specifically in your life, in work, in relationships. Steve? In everything. What does that mean?

Steve's his manager who sat behind the camera. I feel like we should put up a should publish i know what i love about this is that with steve my fans think that like steve's like doing something to me so they're always like a liberty for liam he always looks for steve but it's not because i like him it's not because he's like harming me as a person but then there's like a hashtag liberty for liam like they think i'm like some like prison child there's gonna be all these other people who are just listening on the audio and think you're calling my name so my one thing i really got into over over lockdown was art and drawing oh interesting something i've done since i was younger and that point was find something to do

that doesn't make you money was the whole point of the exercise i was like okay cool drawing and i said to the person who gave me the advice at the time i was like i guarantee this turns into something hold for later on in the conversation um so i started drawing but then what i found was i was so bad at starting the task blank sheet of paper and all that because i was so worried about what might come out that i was like i'd sit there like if something's not quite right i like it can ruin my day in a drawing if something goes wrong and it's not quite right, I'm like, Oh my God. Like, I hate it. That's the kind of thing. And how did that go? Okay. I mean, the thing is once I got started and got onto some stuff, but then it was like,

sometimes in that respect, then I was drinking to draw pictures because I was so in my own fricking way way and it's the same writing songs as well you can do the same thing with everything you can trade out all that crap and it's like that's why you know people might smoke a bit or do whatever when they make a track it's all about getting out your own way and I feel like now I feel much more like I know who I am and I know what I want to do so I don't need to be in my own way I'm gonna go you know I don't need these additives. They only make me worse anyway.

In the long run, right? Oh my God. Yeah. Today, today it might help, but tomorrow it's going to cause problems. And are you still drinking?

No. No, not still. No, no, I've been sober just over a month now. I think it is. Hey,

my business partner, he, when we started the business, became an alcoholic about three, four years in, cause it was just too tough. And then he had like severe suicidal ideation. he actually didn't tell me at the time and this is why when i was reading about your story i could relate to so much of it because i didn't say what i was going through to him he didn't say it to me and then it was like after

we'd sold the business that he was like i used to stand on the train platforms and think about jumping in front of the train and i was like and he never told me and and but there was and you i didn't know what alcoholism or really mental health was at the time but i'd go downstairs 3am in the morning and i'd open up the laundry room and he's in there with a bottle of wine at 3am the lights are off and he's just drinking it sat on the clothes i'm like get off my fucking clothes i'm joking and i was like what the hell's going on but you know and i read similar things similar sort of story or narratives in your story where, you know, you were having moments of that kind of like ideation.

You were having moments of suicidal ideation. Yeah, I mean, there's some stuff that I've definitely like never, never spoken about to do with it. It was really, really, really severe. And it was a problem. And it was only until I saw myself after that, I was like, right, I need to fix myself. It was like a few pictures of me on a boat and I'm all

like blowing out and I call it pills and booze face. And I was like this, like my face was just like 10 times more than it is now. And I just didn't like myself very much. Then I made a change. And the same thing happened this year with that sort of thing as well. But the problem we had in the band, and I don't blame anybody for this. I don't want to seem like I'm whining or moaning. Oh my God, look at my life, whatever. But it feels to me like when we had in the band and i don't blame anybody for this i don't want to seem like i'm whining or moaning oh my god look at my life whatever but it feels to me like 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 minibar so at a certain point i thought well i'm going to have a party for one and that just seemed to carry on throughout many years of my life and then you look back how long you've been drinking and stuff for you, like, Jesus Christ, that's a long time. Even for someone who's, you know, as young as I was,

um, as wild, but it was like the only way you could get frustration out in the day or being like trapped. And, and, you know, I spoke about to somebody about this and in child development, you know, as a team, the one thing you need is, is freedom to make choices and freedom to do stuff. And it was the one thing thing that although we could do anything we wanted it seemed from the outside that we were always locked in a room at night and then it would be car hotel room stage sing locked so it was like they pull the dust cloth off let us out for a minute and then and then it's like back underneath here and i'm like good so crazy because you're right the public will think the absolute opposite we think ah one direction those guys have got total freedom.

All the money and what they can do, anything. Everyone's, you know, in their nine to five jobs just thinking, I'd love to have that level of freedom that Liam Payne has to do anything. But you can't do anything, right? It's the opposite. No, I mean, because we were young. I mean, I actually wanted to speak to you about this as well. Because obviously you've reached strats very high at a young age. It's like, what I found was, I didn't know I was the boss until a long, until like a few months ago.

I still don't even feel like I am now. Like I'm such a child. And everyone I work with is like older than me and wiser than me. And I'm like, what the hell am I doing here with these people? So it's like, you know, when we were 17, I thought the security guard was like in charge of me like i was like oh can we leave the room no okay then not to worry i'll just stay here that's what it was like so i didn't know what the hell i was doing you know what i mean it's like and no one there's no guidebook they don't give you a little dvd on the way and saying here you're a pop star this is what you gotta do so i'm like in the room like what are

we allowed to leave and then eventually that becomes like an angry person. And I was, because there was points where it was toxic and it was difficult. Don't get me wrong. We had the best time ever. We did. But there was moments where through, you know, I mean, there's a big movement on it at the moment and people overworking and like,

you don't realize you have a choice at that point. But in those shows, sometimes they don't give you the choice because you want the dream, but you have to realize there is a sacrifice for that. You know, rather than it just, and like I say, I never want to come on these things and whine about stuff. Like I made my own choices in life, you know, being an alcoholic, doing whatever else, that wasn't my choice.

So, you know, it doesn't have to be whiny, but it's just like, there was a sacrifice. And I know what I did sacrifice to be choice so you know it doesn't have to be whiny but it's just like there was a sacrifice and i know what i did sacrifice to be here you know everything what i've come to learn everything in life all the good shit comes with a cost oh and i've i've learned just from my own experience like my success my success very different from yours we went very different paths but came with a clear cost because you can't go from being a 18 year old kid that's like nicking chicagotown pizzas to feed himself to being to building a company worth 300 million within six seven years what a great sentence that was like i could like i was a fucking loser like loner like i was in my room for summers upon summers

on my own for just you know because i could ate my parents weren't talking to me they said don't call us until you go back to university years on my so he wasn't speaking to my family no friends because i couldn't even afford to see him that was the cost for me and what that made is someone who again isn't very social on the weekends i spend 99 of my time alone and people are like oh my god let's be i'm like well and then and then i have the same thing you have which is my brain is always has a thousand tabs open and I can't just go

and sit on a sun lounger and tan like tan? what's my brain going to do then? sitting in the bath is one of my worst ones as well but that's it

you're right and you know what like think about someone as simple as someone who like plays guitar the amount of time you have to spend alone

with that instrument you're going to be missing a couple of other things that happen in life exactly and that's what it's like exactly and that was for us as for us as teens growing up you know i think people like i said i started at 14 that's nuts like i was in my school i remember very clearly the moment that that like the x factor like moment happened when i was when i was younger and i was playing football on a field and we had an all-girls school right next door to us so i'm just playing football like it's a normal day I've had a few like people like shout me out in the street where it's like cool I'm you know 14 years old the whole school from the other school

is on the fence you're joking I'm like banned from that field for life at first how does it feel it was wild but what their people did wild yeah it was it was amazing i was like i went from like zero to like i was the you know it was the thing is i always say to people i wasn't world famous when i was 14 but i was famous within my world so it's like well i didn't leave wolverhampton and everybody in wolverhampton knew who the hell i was so i couldn't go anywhere so you know and at that point i can't afford a security guard i'm not special enough to have any of these like additives. I'm still on the seven, nine, four,

eight, uh, you know, my little, my little Christian school. And then what happened over time is, and I, you know,

people are people, they, they do what they do, but there was, there was one significant moment for me where I knew that I lost it. And I wasn't going to go back on X-Factor to be in the band, which would have been wild by the way, I would not have been here right now.

But there was a moment I was in a McDonald's with like a new girlfriend I had at the time. And it had been two years since the show. And I noticed my shows decreased in number, decreased in capacity and decreased in wages. So I was like down and out at this point. So I've had fame and lost it. And I'm like nearly 16 years old. So that's difficult to deal with anyway at that age. And then I'm in McDonald's and because everyone still knows who I am,

I'm sat there and I literally remember about to take a bite of this nice juicy burger. Someone on the stairs goes, X Factor reject. And the whole restaurant looks at me, right? I'm 15 years old. And it was just horrible. What a scumbag thing to say.

I know, but it was like, that's the thing. It was almost like a shout out to say, you think you're special but you're still here in the most wolverhampton i guess you gotta understand where that comes from though from that person what's going on someone said something to me today it's not what you do it's what's happened to you which i thought was quite i like that so so tell me what happens from there so you i don't want to go too much into because I know you get asked this stuff all the time. So we don't want to go over old tracks, but that was your first sort of experience with fame.

You then kind of, you feel it declining. Ice Cube says some stuff to you in the McDonald's. Life carries on. And then, yeah, on the point of, because I really want to get to this. I know you're working on this NFT project and it's based around this feeling of being. It's based around the idea.

It was like a, I want to call it of being it's based around the idea it was it was like a I want to call it a syndrome I don't know what it was someone told me something about fame you enter fame the age you you leave fame the age you entered it so for me that was 14 right so I'm screwed like I'm a 14 year old forever child so that was always a big fear of mine that I have to grow properly now from what One Direction gave me, I grew massively in some respects to the point that I mean, you all have experiences when you have conversations about business deals and I'm the director of a company, like I was a director of a half a billion dollar industry at 22. And I'm like, what the hell does that mean? All it meant was I got to sign 10 times more forms than anybody

else. Wild, right? So, but then in other things, like if I'm trying to pay car insurance, I'm useless. So then you don't grow in other aspects of your life because you have other people do crap for you. Like picking up my post, I'm the worst person in the world. I just forget about it, you know? That must lead you open to be taken advantage of, right? Because they know that there's some things you don't know. Like you were saying, your security person was-

Yeah, that's it. And you're deluded in your growth of whatever but this is where the nft idea kind of came from and it but it first started as this this little drawing that i did and i wanted to make my own character because i was like i'm really good at drawing but we have printers for that i don't need to be a printer so then i was like i need to make something so i made this like ethereal creature that was i wanted to 3D print and stick in a crystal glass box. And the idea is that he's depressed. It's like a wasp in a beer glass type thing. Magical creature, can't get out sort of thing. So then we kind of came up with this prayer of turnus idea around fame and what

does that lead to? And for me, the way it speaks to me and the way that art speaks to me is that I was afraid of the idea of losing, you know, having, keeping the child with me. I was trying to, it was like a monkey at my back trying to get rid of him. Whereas for now, the idea for me is more based around, you know, how do I enjoy that? Because what I love when I see my son is that he can be whatever he wants in that moment. You know, I'll be over the house and he's like, you're a bad guy. I'm a good guy. And I'm like, that's great. And then the next day he's one of them girls from frozen. No, no, I'm doing this. It's magic powers today. And I'm like, wow, like we lose that. And then that's a lot of my problem when

I'm sitting doing a task or whatever, the belief system in me has been trodden on through life that much that now I've forgotten about that that they have the ability to do whatever the hell they want so why would you ever want to lose the child within you in that sense wow and that's coming out as an nft soon it's coming out as an nft uh in like two weeks i think it's quite scary it's wild because i just made it i made it one day in lockdown and then sent it to my manager and we enjoyed the pieces it was but then it just kind of grew into this thing at the same time that nfts were growing right there's a thing i mean have you how many people ask you what nfts are by the way um so many of them a lot of people uh like i'll get dms all the time and you know i'll try and describe what it is but i think if you say something with enough conviction people just believe it anyway

so i'm like you know broccoli you know i'll just say, people will just believe it anyway. So I'm like, you know, broccoli, you know what I mean? I'll just say anything. I know what it is. I've studied it. I'm working on a few projects at the moment with NFTs, but I'm just, you know, with all these emerging technologies and whenever something's new,

I'm kind of like probably a little bit like you and Christian. I know you're very, very entrepreneurial and investing a lot now. I just want to be in there like a sponge. So I want like a flag in there just so i can learn some yeah well i mean i think that's a common misconception about this sort of thing as well is that you always come up with the idea that's coming to you rather than like you say being that sponge in the middle of the room if you're not part of the million dollar conversation you were

never part of the fucking conversation and that's literally it's like be in the moment like rather than trying to make decisions or you just have to learn about that stuff and you don't have to know everything you just have to know someone that does know something you know what i mean it's that the thing is you get older i think the wildest thing is that people those phrases that they used to say to you as kids like when i had my child my mom saying to me oh like you're growing up so quickly, like blinking, you'll miss it. And you're a kid, you're like, yeah, I'm six, like chill out. But then as you get older, you're like watching it. And I watch my son grow up, I'm like, oh my God.

Like he's telling me off now. They grew up so fast. My niece, I mean, I've got a child of my own, according to the Daily Mail, but you know, just like this. Where did you get those legs from? I've been teaching mine to swim. I mean, we had a really good conversation today and it's like it's a whole new learning experience once again there's no handbook

and you're just like out there on your own i still feel like a child in so many ways as you've learned from my nft yeah yeah but uh i'm watching him and like i played him a trailer a movie trailer it was this simple i played him a trailer for a thing and we watched it we both like that let's stick that on it was just Disney's Raya and a dragon thing. It was about you. You and your new friend, Raya. And so we sat there and then I turned the film on and the first shot of the film was from the trailer.

He's going, why are you playing this again? And I'm going, no, no, no. It was, we watched the trailer. No, but why is it on the TV again? And it kept like bits get flashing on. I'm like, oh my is not helping me so then i'm like okay let me how do i explain this i was like you know like if we like have a plate of food and like i feed you a little bit and then you go oh and you don't want it and then i take it away or if i feed someone you go oh yeah and i give you the whole thing i was like that's like this and then he's going yeah but why are we

watching it again you must do you get scared as a dad about doing the wrong thing or the right thing because you say there's no handbook so you're like if you feed him this or if you say this he's going to start

saying the c word at school like I don't oh when he did swear once I was happy I wasn't around for it because I couldn't be blamed and there's a way to root out find out whose swear word it is

because it wasn't a combination I would use oh really so I knew it wasn't me. Mummy. Who was it? Who was it? We won't go into that.

You said, I don't normally loop back, but there was something you said, which again, my mind thought, oh, that's really intriguing, is you said that you weren't going to reapply for the X Factor, potentially. Where do you think you would be? And I'm going to ask you various iterations

of these questions. Where do you think you'd be in your'm gonna ask you various iterations of these questions where do you think you'd be in your life now if you hadn't have applied for the x factor so you want the business plan that's what you really want to hear you want to hear the yeah you know hey i'll lay out for you this is this is my this was actually my like plan b system is range child okay so i got a job at the same time this is really wild work experience week at school my dad worked at a factory and I was always obsessed. I was like, this is adult Lego and he built airplanes.

I was like, this is amazing. I'm going to do that. So I went and I built airplanes and they had like a little collection for me. And I did like 400 quid and everyone, I was like, what did you get paid for your work experience? And I was like,

nothing. I was like, Oh, I got like 500 quid. But in the middle of my work experience, I went on X factor. So it was almost like I was trialing my two lives. Almost like a, what's that slide indoors film or film whatever it's called a butterfly effect or oh yeah yeah

so my thing was i got a job and secured one there for an apprenticeship which was like 22 000 a year or something and then i was like right i know my sister paid 60 pound board at the house so if i just like board at my parents house it's 60 pound fees, then I can save up the other money enough to buy my first house and then rent it out. All right. So you had a plan. Then I was going to collect the rent, buy another one and then move into that one. And then it was almost like a conveyor belt system. Nice.

You had it all planned out. I had it ready to go. And then X Factor ruined it. I mean, you say your favorite TV program was Dragons. I watched Help My House is Falling Down and Location, Location, Location and stuff like that when i was a kid i was like obsessed yeah and then fun enough my manager does loads of properties are you on the odds are you into property i love property really i i wasn't very good at the start but i'm getting better you need to teach me some stuff because i have zero properties i'm renting this place um i was gonna say to you um with them when you do a show like

x factor what a lot of the sort of people that come out the other end of these shows often say, especially, I mean, very few have had the success that you've had, right? But I can imagine, and I think I might have read this somewhere before, maybe from Little Mix, is you feel somewhere in you that you still have something to prove. 100%. Talk to me about that. I mean... somewhere in you that you still have something to prove because... 100%. Really? 100%.

Talk to me about that. I mean... Because your success is just stratospheric. It's like in a league of its own. It's wild. So to hear that you feel like you still have something to prove is surprising. Well, I mean, I think there's a problem that us as people, we all want something that we feel like we made.

But the older I get and the more things i'm like privy to you don't really make anything on your own ever like i think there's just about ed sheer in the rights on his own even he doesn't write music on his own so it's like for one that feels a little bit like that because you were in the band and i suppose for each of us as members we wanted to see what we could do and i you know i'm really happy with my success of as far what i, I don't know is how, how much of this idea was, was,

was mine to go with as to be in the music career. You know, you worry about like the life that you might've missed over. I was going to do this, whatever. I always quite liked the idea of the army as a kid. That's something I definitely wanted to do. I love the idea of the army and,

and boxing's another one. I mean, I've been, I've been fortunate to have a go a bunch of fun stuff um but yeah i think you always feel like you have something to prove and i think the end of the day you're just you're already really proving it to yourself because no one else really cares everyone else just looks at you as what it is and it's not that you want to beat your brand because no one will beat our one direction not one of us in our lifetimes in another lifetime somebody might

might crack something. I mean, BTS have had a really good go at it. They've done really, really well. But we were like the new wave of the Beatles. And even still,

people didn't say we beat the Beatles. You know what I mean? It's different. It's a different era. Exactly. And that's what happened with our fame as well.

We were just that of this era. It's the same with Justin Bieber, right? Who the hell's beating that run? Come on. They won't. Someone will be different. Exactly. Exactly. So it's just Bieber, right? Who the hell's beating that run? Come on. They won't. Someone will be different. Exactly, exactly.

So it's just like, I think in the end, you're only like fighting against yourself. That's not Rocky Balboa now. I'm really intrigued by all of that because you also have these five, so you have five band members. They all go off

and do their own solo careers. And do you compete against each other? Do you try and stay out of each other's lanes? Are you thinking about, oh my God, I don't want to be seen as doing, you know what this person's doing. I think we did compete with each other at a point,

but I think it's all fairly like it's laid out as it is now. And we've all had our success in completely different areas. And also musically, we didn't really go down the same route. I think Harry, Harry's an amazing, you know, I mean, first album, he had the one song off, which is really, really well same route. I think Harry, Harry's an amazing, you know, I mean,

first album, he had the one song off, which is really, really well. And then his second album, he found himself. And that's, that is your awakening as artists.

That's when it really clicks. I don't feel like I've had that moment within me yet. I've written some songs recently that I'm really proud of and happy with, but I don't feel like I've had that moment yet. Strip That Down came out and it was, we did a billion streams and I could have never have asked for that i could have never asked for that in a million years but when i was making strip that down i was a box of frogs i was nuts it was wild i didn't know what the hell was going on and also i didn't know what the what the you know the hot potato i just

got landed on me oh we just did a billion streams it's like it literally is like hot potato one minute's here the next minute's gone so you know i'm excited to see what the next the next six months of this brings you know um i'm excited to see to see we have some a really cool song in the pipeline um which is really exciting wow really exciting then the song one of the first ones i've actually written myself um with some other people i write by myself um but it's yeah the first one i've really liked and i think i got so used to carting around other people's songs not embedded myself creatively in what i do because i was scared to find out who i was so it's almost like that's the thing when you're selling yourself you have to know what the hell you're selling and i'm you

know i'm sure most people wake up every day going i don't know what the fuck is going on and you have to fail to find that out right yeah 100 because you're gonna have to try some shit and experiment oh my god and it's like so say like you're like geeky kind of growing phase between say 16 to 21 if you're lucky it might last a bit longer if you're shit you i did that in front of everyone and there's some terrible outfits there's some terrible haircuts you know and that's great that stuff is there forever i've gotten away with a few hair yeah i feel like you've had some great ones the short haircut i think not a lot of people can pull that out i got a bit of like a melon head thing at the back so i can't i can't do that people think i'm an alien but um no you've had some good haircuts i've got to be honest when i read something about um strip that down you said that you were almost scared of the success

just as much as scared of the failure. Oh, man. I mean, no one trains you for the moment it goes right, right? So you leave One Direction, you've got your big sort of debut single coming up and you're scared of the success. I was really worried because I know what that can bring to you. What can it bring?

Well, I finished a day recently, one of the one days that stuck out for me in the last few years where I did a whole day's promo in New York. And on the nighttime, I was on, I think it's an Andy Cohen show or something. And they had a drinking game. And someone asked me a question

about one of my ex-girlfriends and I did not want to divulge what the hell went down. And it was a drinking game. So I was like, they were like can fill it with water but me being me was like now if i'm playing i'm playing for real so i'm like necking tequila oh gosh boom and i'm wasted i get home at half past one bear in mind i started at like i want to say eight o'clock in the morning i was then asleep and i woke up at half past three for vocal training to be in central park at seven for grooming at to be in Central Park at seven for grooming at five and in Central Park for seven o'clock. Bear in mind, I went to bed at half past one. So I know what it can bring in that, that crap will send you insane. I don't remember some

days I was here. Like that will send you round the bend, but it's the, if you want it, if you want it, it's out there for you. You can go ahead and take it, but it's like, you have to be a workhorse to want to, to do this. And I think a lot of artists would say that coming out want it, it's out there for you. You can go ahead and take it. But it's like, you have to be a workhorse to want to do this. And I think a lot of artists would say that coming out of it. But I don't think it's, you know, it's unfortunate, the demand in our industry and also the demand of how quickly people receive information now. You know, our 30 second time, like goldfish time span

that we've got now. I mean, I definitely have that. I'm the worst. And it went really, really fucking fucking well it went really well and then it was like you know the problem we had was it was like having a baby the thing was nine months to get the number one in america so it took nine months to work the record just to get the number one so if you can imagine singing the same song every day for nine months and having like one or two songs to back it up with it was like pretty like i'm sure somewhere that must be like put down as a method of torture

yeah i can imagine you must this is the job man and it's like it's listen the first few shows of anything are amazing and then after a while it's like you'll find bits that will like great on you and whatever else but you know i've been so lucky to have the career that I've had. And, you know, let's hope for more of that. That's what I think at this point. But it's learning how to deal and channel that. And what's your relationship like with the rest of the boys? I'm sure you get asked this all the time.

But I imagine it evolves. Great with most of them. I think everyone's settling into themselves at this point. I know I am for sure. I had a lovely phone call from Harry the other day. He was checking in on me. And it's always like some people have got sixth sense for you, right? That you're going through something.

So they'll check in. And he's very much like that. He's a lovely, lovely boy. I love him to pieces. And then Louis, I speak to a lot. And we've always had a really, really close connection. And the funny thing for us, and I've said this a lot, but we hated each other at the start.

But it's almost the people that you grow closest to, you know. And Niall, I'll say it because he brought it up quite recently, but, you know, the whole thing of the talk about the reunion. Like for me, I'd rather we talked about it sooner rather than later because I don't want to... It's tough touring touring that that that sort of record and then and i enjoyed touring for what i enjoyed it for but there's parts of it that really really fucked me up man in a sense i'll be honest with you um but none of us talk about it

it's like it's taboo subjects like oh we can't get back together what do you mean oh my god like us in the same room what the fuck is that about what fucked you up about touring uh my dad said it from day one lonely hotel rooms, man. Getting locked in that room is not fun when you've been exposed. I mean, I've come off gigs before. I did a gig in Dubai. I was really worried no one was going to show up. It was one of my first solo gigs by myself.

And I suppose I'm uber self-critical. I'm always like, I don't know what the hell's going on. So I get to this park and the capacity for the park is like, you've never seen i'm looking at like a park i'm like how the hell i'm thinking we're getting paid a lot of money to be here this is gonna be really embarrassing if nobody shows up and i don't know anybody in dubai i can't even call 10 friends to be here so i'm like at dinner i'm not eating my food and whatever else then i get back to the gig and there's people chanting and going liam liam and i'm like okay

there's people here oh my god i can chill i get out there and I'm like awash with these sea of people. And I noticed the sound system's hella quiet behind me. I'm like, does this make any sense? I get through the gig and you autopilot the hell out of it. When I got off stage, they're like, oh, you broke a record. You're on a list with Michael Jackson. It was 110,000 people. I'm like, and I was like, I shit you not. I got back to my hotel room and I was sat in my room on a chair like this. And I was about to go to the Maldives with, with Cheryl and Bear. And I'm like, I don't think I can go to the Maldives right now. I can't move off this chair.

How did you feel on that chair? Shocked. Why? Like to go from like, I don't know who's going to be here to then I looked on the thing and it's like Oasis, Robbie Williams, all these amazing, you know, ACDC, all these outdoor gigs, amazing outdoor gigs. And then just me and Michael Jackson. And he's in there like three or four times.

He's, you know, he is the list, but I was on the same list. I'm like, what the? Can't be easy. Like go back to that hotel room. And then it's just mute. It's almost like, you know, like in that, in a movie where they throw a grenade and he goes, and then everyone's like, that's what it feels like. And's almost like you know like in that in a movie where they throw a grenade and he goes and then everyone's like that's what it feels like and you're like oh my god like yeah because i've done nine nine thousand fifty fifteen thousand in sao paulo i mean i did

a talk with obama that's me name dropping oh wow but um but they're not chanting they're all very quiet i mean they clap at the end but but how do you make you feel you just feel like a different yeah i i can completely relate because i i was thinking last year i lived in new york city but i was i was speaking around the world 50 weeks of the year so i was home four weeks and yeah i go back to the hotel room sometime you know i haven't eaten because of the adrenaline um and yeah it's very lonely and you're like youtube and what do i Yeah. But 110,000 people screaming your name and you're performing. I had the prince or the king

or something of Dubai dancing to strip that down. Oh, wow. I need to get that on TikTok. In a country where you conveniently can't strip it down, which I thought was very funny, but he was up dancing, you know?

We were talking about the touring here, the touring part, really messed you up to the hotel rooms. Yeah. A return of 1D. Yeah, I saw like a thing

of people being like angry x factor this last few weeks and i wanted to say something about it but i didn't really know what to say on my terms because i feel like there's obviously going to be some people in there who are bitter and you sign up for this show you don't really know what the hell you're getting yourself into but i would agree and i we've actually gone out of our way as a team to make this possible for me and i think a record label just bought into the idea of what we've made and i was the guinea pig right so pick the craziest person in the room to start with that's a good place to start and uh we made this this thing to like care for people in the industry because we don't have unions we don't have people to look after us

and i was a kid you, I was a child when this happened to me. And I'm very fortunate to still be here today to be able to tell this story. But for most people, they feel abused or something in some sense. So I just think that there needs to, there needs to be a self-care, a care system within these shows, because if they're going to move people through these shows and use them to make television, they can't just like let them off afterwards. And I could never watch X Factor because I was always heartbroken because I'd been the guy who made it really far and then got let go. And it ruined me when I was 14, I was crap at school, depressed, like it ruined me at one point. But I've also then been the guy who, I think my dad actually came out and said it in a thing we

were filming once. He was like, you've been told no more than any winning X factor contestant or like any successful X factor. I'm like, thanks dad. It's great. What an unusual experience. Wild.

If you were to tour again, would you do it differently? Would you have, I don't actually even know how I would tour again. I really want to. And like, I want to put, I always said throughout this solo career,

I'd let my songbook speak to me. And I don't think my songbook has necessarily spoke to me enough to get me off my ass to go somewhere yet. I only became a solo artist because I had stripped that down. I wasn't going to do it. I was going to leave it alone. Music. Yeah.

I was going to leave it hell alone. I was like, I survived once. Thank you very much. But now I'm back in. Why? Because the song, I leave it hell alone. I was like, I survived once. Thank you very much. But now I'm back in. Why? Because the song, I knew it was right.

It felt right with the song. Whereas I haven't had that. And this year, the song that we have, I feel really right about. So I would rather let the music do the talking than me come out and, you know.

I mean, it's such a fast moving industry these days. It's one of the biggest races in the world, right? If we had a start line for how many musicians there are trying to make it right now and who's going to outwork the other one we'd need a very big track um so it's just kind of got to that place we don't need any

more useless music in the world in my eyes it needs to mean something said there's something you know in the previous answer that you've said online which is that you're lucky to be here one of the most moving things i've ever seen which honestly disturbed me and has stayed with me my entire life was that avicii documentary and the way that his management were pushing him and he had social anxiety and oh god it just haunts me you know what with those things i mean i've spoken to managers who've lost people and different and you know i've definitely put strain on a lot of people in my life in the past.

You see, that's me, that makes me a different person I don't like talking about. You know, I think it's hard. It's just as hard for the team around you at points as it is for you. Because we didn't all know how the hell we got here. Everyone's kind of looking around like, we don't really know how the hell we got here. Everyone's kind of looking around like, we don't really know how the hell we got here.

So where's the next move? And there's always someone who will pull you through. I've been very, very fortunate now with the people that I had to pull me through my bits. And it's, you know, that's why I say this care system is so important, right? Music is the lifeblood of a lot of our things. It's the background to our movie scenes

when we're sat in the back of the car looking longfully out the window but when we don't want to look after the thing that's kind of feeding us that much you know what i mean so i think for artists in the sense they do need that i feel that it doesn't need to get lost in translation in other things it genuinely needs to be a care system but then everyone's over therapy these days in that sense anyway but it's like if you want it it should be available you know is that was that is there a moment where you look back and say that was the lowest moment for me that was the pivotal moment a few of them i was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be where's rock bottom for me and you would never have seen it i'm very good at hiding it no one would ever have seen it but rock bottom i mean i don't even know if i hit it yet you know what i

mean i feel like it's like one of those little graphs you see when it's like, oh, we hit the, you know, the support, the market support. Yeah, we'll be there. This is the support level. Oh my God. You know, it's the same thing. So it feels like I can either make that choice now

and pick my last moment as my rock at the bottom, or I can make a new one and make a whole new low. That's my choice you you said online that you were you had previously been masking your emotions and feelings and this was something that you were trying to trying to get over um said you you tried to learn to deal with your emotions instead of masking them how important has that been this is something i really struggle with i'll tell you what because i was the CEO of a company you know 27 years up 26 27 years old 700 employees and that's wild all around the world these adults that are double my age and i have to be right my business partner

he'll tell you he fell away right alcoholic put on all this weight depressive anxiety fell away so i'm carrying him because i need because we're we co-founders we're seen as a unit so when he's out in the street and i don't he won't mind me saying this because he's been drinking all day with the team and he's stealing what bottles of wine off other people's tables just total strangers and he's doing things in public which you get arrested for with parts of his body that i'm not going to talk about when he's doing those things i'm getting a phone call i'm 26 and i have to not only manage him my business partner but then i'm having to manage all the impact that's had on all of our employees and i felt that i could never talk or be vulnerable you are the thing i find so but that's

why i said it's not people don't realize it's not just you know and what happened to avicii is terrible by the way and i haven't seen the documentary i didn't watch i actually knew someone who knew who worked with him he wrote with me as well and he said that what he saw was going on was not good but for the most part for a lot of these people there's usually somebody in there that's not very good but everyone else is trying to help and you don't see the effect it's having on them as well you live and die by the sword i live and die by my sword that's it but the person who's behind trying to pick up the shield to help me they haven't even got the fucking sword they're just diving into battle for you and that's the difference you know what i mean it's like people

miss out on that bit so it's never just on that person you know what i mean a lot of my stuff you know if i hadn't had the help i had i don't know where the hell i'd be right now so that's a credit to you in a sense it's um it's super tough i think with the um the bit that i i really respect you for though is you're very open about it you talk about it you talk about going to therapy you talk about your lows you talk about being unsure if you would even be here and that's going to do a lot of good for a lot of people i hope so i mean the worst bit for me is i think it's seen so much as a tool these days to hide behind the points and for me it's never about that

situation i'm just telling you as what it is and and it's that's the bit where i think like i say i don't want any of this to get lost in translation I am not 1% moaning about my life I love my life at the minute my life's great it's had its ups it's had its downs but it's you know

yeah I think I'd rather talk about it and it's therapeutic for me and this has been a really good chat by the way this is a cool chat I like this chat a lot

there's been some shit ones let me tell you I can imagine yeah no because I'm genuinely asking you questions that I give a fuck about yeah that's it that's the point though and i'm telling you the thing as if it matters to me not trying to hide behind some

sort of bullshit thing you know and like i say i think there's many people who have this effect on on therapy and all those things and sobriety and i ain't saying everyone at home by the way should go sober i ain't telling them to go vegan i ain't telling them to do whatever I'm saying this is what I did and it worked pretty okay for me so far so you know you're you're making you made a movie you wrote a movie right I've been working on something for a while and me and Christian spoke about a few weeks ago and it's funny that it's based around AA but I had a really weird AA experience the first time that I went into. What's AA for anybody that doesn't know? Alcoholics Anonymous.

And my first experience was with Russell Brand, which if you've seen Get Him to the Greek or any of those other movies, I went to his house and I love Russell. There's something about that sentence which I can't get over. My first experience was with Russell Brand. Okay. I mean, yeah, exactly. I'm in his house. I'm in this dude's house and i've never met him and i've only seen him on the movies and and as a comic and i you know my bookie wookie i love that stuff and like so i know a lot of things about him but i'm not i'm a really shy person when i first moved i'm like oh my god like so he makes me a coffee and we sit talking about our experiences

and i've never seen someone look at me the way he looked at me like find you a man who looks at you like Russell Brad looks at you when he's listening to your stories because he like looks into your soul I was like I was born again and then we went to this meeting it was an all male meeting and there was everything in the meeting from prison guards to ex-soldiers to ex-cons to postmen to bin men to everything and then me and russell brand so i'm like this is the weirdest room i've ever been in my life we're in like some old like community like church room or whatever and then he's he's taking the chair in the room so my first experience with aa was like the best experience ever because it was like he was just doing stand-up it was

unbelievable he was doing stand-up in an aim no it's like they they have someone who chairs the oh okay and the idea is like if they say like oh can you talk about relationships and how it was affected by alcohol then he'll tell the story

of his alcoholism or you know narcotics thing and then you're linking from his experience to go oh my god I'm the same as you

and that's how it works I'm not going to give the whole script away because otherwise I'll tell you the whole film but I kind of came up with this film and I haven't spoken to Russ by which is the first thing I have to do because it was from him that this

obviously I'm in a movie right now and I'm one of the characters and I'm sat here going I don't know what the hell I'm doing here but apparently I'm alcoholic and I've got a problem what's going on the walls are closing in the Wolf Wall Street was in the corner over there it was wild.

I'm excited about it and I think it's really funny. I showed it to one of my friends and she really liked it. She laughed a lot at it, so we'll see. What else is going on in your life in terms of business and investing and projects and stuff like that? When you think about the direction of travel

that you want to take over the next 10 years, which direction do you want to focus on and go in? You're investing tons. You've got your own businesses now. Everyone's going to say the same thing to you. Every time you have an interview, they're going to say, when is the reunion? I mean, I've had a wild, my business learning curve from the day I first got my like first check and I went to the manager. I'm like, what do you invest your money in? Cause he had the biggest garden in London. I was like, he's a good place to start. He had the biggest home garden, which you don't think he does anymore, Steve, do you? Okay. Apparently he doesn't anymore, but apparently he did when I was younger, he did. So I'm like trying to ask him like what are you investing? He's like on about gold and whatever else. Then you learn

about safe haven currencies and all these other things. Then I started to branch out a little bit more, a little bit more. Then I went on to properties, which was always the one I wanted to do. And then when I was 19, I nearly bought a fighting agency, which was fun. A fighting agency? Bama.

I got bought in to buy Bama when I was 19. So I roll up to this in my Burberry coat thinking I'm an absolute bad man because I'm about to buy like England's UFC. Oh, okay. Okay. Fine.

Right. So I go to this arena in Manchester. I'm looking past it. He's not great. Everything else. I'm looking at all this stuff and you're a kid. So I'm a kid. And I mean,

I remember being front row of the fight and some guy behind me obviously doesn't like the band very much. Like sit out, shut up, whatever else. Every fighter then after got out of the ring and shook my hand and i just kept looking behind thinking you still got to say do you know the guy with the scary clown mask just need that other guy's nose off like he's my friend he's my so i was like yeah exactly and uh

and then i went met everybody afterwards and i i got into his company but unfortunately the deal wasn't great i put it through one of my investors that i have and then it's like people try to catch you out and this was always my biggest problem. I very fortunate to live in some lovely places. And every time someone would show up at my door to do something and the job would cost 500 pounds, they would try and charge me 50 grand because the house was big. And I'm like learning early on, like,

and, but don't get me wrong. I've spent some money on some stuff I shouldn't have spent money on. You and me both. Um, uh, yeah. I mean, I'm not going to go into detail. I i lost some money like my thing i always say to people is like i will tell you where i lost as much as i tell you where i win you can't make mistakes though right yeah

and like my point is i'm gonna do better than whatever my last mistake was anyway that's the point if i trust myself enough it won't matter in the long run when you think about money though you know you didn't come from money you didn't come from the long run when you think about money though you know you didn't come from money you didn't come from the back when you started i read that your dad had tons of debts and stuff like that and so you your relationship with money will be very very different as you've gone over the last decade um than a lot of other people because to you it's probably something that you thought was you built up more when you're younger right yeah and i think as a kid growing and especially if you like rap music as well,

it becomes a completely different thing. Rap music made me spend a hell of a lot of money. I would say, yeah, I mean, I have one of my friends over recently and my family, my dad made decisions in our house of what was going on and stuff. And he did them for the right reasons. So I stand by that.

And he doesn't need to feel any pain in that whatsoever because he wanted us to go on a holiday and go to America and he would bury himself. And he was so stressed. He said at one point in his life, he woke up and he couldn't remember his own name because he was so far in debt. He was already covering the interest, which I can't imagine how that feels. I mean, it probably feels exactly the same how I feel some days with the other side of it, which is wild. And we won't get into that. But at one point in my life, I mean, my friend, the professional poker player now, but he was quite a rich kid at school because he was like playing poker since he was like 13 so when we would go down to to get breakfast i couldn't afford it and he'd buy me like 20

peas worth of toast and i couldn't afford it which is wild so then when you get money i didn't know my family were poor but they were fucking you know we were we were not in a good place so how did that impact your relationship with money when you finally got it were you a splurger at points yes on certain stuff I would

but not I'm more of a worrier than I was a splurger I was like because of where I lived and where I was from I knew it could disappear so I was always

really cautious about protecting what I have and only spending what I earn that's money and happiness talk to me about the link a lot of people there isn't one yeah it's a myth so I think money I think the way to think about money and I mean there's a beautiful thing I had as a kid and when we used to go to church the woman got a five pound note out and she said uh have you ever read a five pound note and I was like no I haven't I was like five right now and she's like uh if you read it it says i promise to pay the bearer of this note five pounds of money as promises which i thought was great but if you develop on that and conversations

i've had with people money is is care and the ability to relax on certain things life's gonna kick you in that nut sometimes and you're gonna need something to help those around you so it's never so much been for me about spending money on me and sometimes i going to need something to help those around you so it's never so much been for me about spending money on me and sometimes i have to remind myself to shop because i'm terrible and i'm one of those people who like will go on a shop fill a basket and then just not do the rest of it i leave it there i'm like oh yeah i feel like i bought something now that's good at least i did something fun with what i'm working my ass off for but i'm not like that so it's like in terms of with things with my family

and different things that have happened, like my dad's debt for all those sorts of different reasons, I'd rather have it on hand than if something, God forbid, happens to any of us. You know, my family are the last people to ever ask me for anything

and I'm the first one to go, this is why we do what we do, you know? You have a son, Bear. Beautiful child. He tells you that he's going apply for x factor someday this is a tricky one this is a tricky i think his mom's hoping he's going to become some like yoga person his mom's very chill these days um he says i'm getting instagram and i'm going to go to do x factor what do you say to him i mean he's got the best advice from the parents around him for

the long run i guess but i don't know i think is that obviously we protected his identity to start off with and that's not being pretentious or anything other than the fact that i want to give him a chance to be bare first before he has to be oh your mom and dad are so-and-so you know and i made my choice to be where i was at 14 15 so i figure he can make his own choice then too we'll have a good discussion about it, a long discussion, because I know what effects that can have as well. But I would never stop him doing something he wanted to do. I'd let him know the risks and I'd tell him what was going to happen,

you know, and better that than, you know, my parents didn't really ever experience any of the things I've experienced before I got there. They had no idea what I was signing up for. Would they change it? Probably not. But they would change some things that happened in between. Across the way, I bet.

A hundred percent. He says he's going to do the show. You give him the disclaimer and the warning. What would you rather he did? If you could, as a dad, you could be that authoritarian and say... If you could choose. Would it be to walk in your footsteps that he enjoys to enjoys doing every day and i mean that's i say that lightly because i think everything that you do depending on what kind of person you are becomes annoying at a point doesn't matter what job you do it's like i really gotta do that

again you know like my dad i used to think my dad's job was the best job ever like building airplanes adult lego like i said whereas my dad's like do not end up in that bloody factory that's the last thing you're going to do um would you want him to follow in your footsteps though uh no i don't believe it better than i did really yeah i don't know i think um sometimes you can get lost in the connection part of this game and i think that's always been a difficult thing for me to connect with people because i put so many barriers up before you get to actually what's going on that you you know it's almost like hurdling them in a way why do you think those barriers are up protection i think it's protecting people from what's you know if you turn up in the disguise every time then you can

always blame it on the disguise the moment you're not wearing one you got nothing to blame it on and what what is it that your your manager over there steven would know about you that you probably most i know in terms of like in a box in terms of like what you know what someone who knows you very well would um say about you that we wouldn't expect just from what we see online you talk because you talk a lot about this wearing this mask and you know being you're wearing a disguise even in your relationships i'm really trying to understand because we've been we've been here maybe now for two hours whatever and as time goes on and on and on you get to know someone a bit better you know and like my barrier goes down a bit yours goes down a bit we get more

comfortable and i'm like who is that person behind there that people don't know because i don't know i mean i think in certain part for me having to translate it from music is difficult. And I am opinionated to an extent. Sometimes they can get me in trouble with some shit and I hate that. That really does annoy me because it's like everyone's entitled to what they want to say about something, right?

You can disagree on whatever. But I think for me, I hide behind humour a lot. I make everything I can funny. And then that will leave it to not be as offensive more okay interesting

I really want to I really want to get an idea of when you you look towards the future professionally what are the what is the positioning that Liam Payne is

is hoping for I guess you know from what you've described for Bear you just want to be doing things you enjoy yeah I think so and I think that's you know there's been there's been a slower road up to that point and it's just doing things for the right reasons i mean we're in a

beautiful age right now you are your own press which is actually great for artists if we learn to do it the right way this whole thing i used to hate was going on and off talk shows going on and off and doing this doing everything else that seemed to be for everybody else and it was promoing your record but then the record bites and you get nothing out of it and it's like everybody else got their five minutes but the record just didn't do what it wanted so it's like you know i want to experiment with the way i promo my records so make sure that the record is taken before i go and halfway around the world it's going oh look listen to this great song and then no one hears it oh great that worked well you know what i mean but it's like almost you know i think the music industry and listen

up people i think the music industry is in a place where people need to throw out the old the old you know marketing format for these things and it's almost like when you see companies that try and do tiktoks don't do it like that because we can see right through what you're doing you've made a tiktok and i was supposed to laugh, but it's not funny. And it's the same for the music industry. It's like, there's a new way that people are promoing things now. You know, Billie Eilish came from a bedroom and did this and da da da. And it's worked out really well,

but it wasn't the same format that you used back in 2010. Even on, I mean, the way the industry's changed while I've been in it, it's been wild. And I've only been here, I've been here a decade, just over a decade now. But it's insane. But I just think record labels and sometimes people spend budget on stuff that they don't need to do. You have your format, you have your fan base, grow it organically, properly. Not through, you know, I don't know, the way we're doing things at the moment.

Because sometimes it's just like, I don't know why the hell we're doing this social media your relationship with it that's been my industry for the last decade um good thing bad thing what's your relationship with at the moment i think it's good i think it's a difficult thing to manage i love the idea of what tiktok does but for me i don't want to get sucked into my phone with like watching stuff constantly and you do and you need to be on your learning stuff and you know it's an odd funny video or whatever else

but if your for you page is just like funny dogs and then you're in what the hell's going on that's what it does to me I'm like god really so I don't know it's I've seen a lot of different technology come in and go out of my industry from the time from twitter and i you know i honestly think there's a strong case for saying that we owe a little bit of our success to the way twitter was because worldwide trends weren't a thing before one

direction before one direction were an x factor whereas on that night we could trend everywhere and then people would go oh my god what's what's this? As though, you know, magically, Oh, the biggest band on X Factor was the same time Twitter came out. Doesn't it's perfect storm stuff, you know? Um, so I think it's great. I think we have a funny way, like I say, with the coins that, you know, the markets just had the most weird few months of people making Hogecoin, Hogecoin Plus, Hogecoin Extra, Hogecoin this, and there's 90 of them. And I'm hearing all of my friends going, oh, did you buy Doggy Doodoo's 21? No, no, no. I bought StarPorn. You know what I mean? I'm like, what the hell are we doing? We're talking in code?

You know? And it's like, but rather than the technology that works, Ripple, Ethereum, you know, things that have real world application rather than coins that works, Ripple, Ethereum, you know, things that have real world application rather than coins that are, hey everyone, I made a coin that's about, you know, tripods for cameras. This tends to happen at the,

I think at the start of these like exponential bubbles, you get this. And then it weeds out the crap. Weeds out the crap. That's what's happened recently to me. The markets took a big dip because they're trying to weed out

some of the stupid stuff. And because it's an unregulated thing, it's like, but I find that that's the same with social media. We need to weed out the bad stuff and focus on the good. There's a lot of debate at the moment because of the racism that some footballers have experienced. Marcus Rashford did a big post the other day that, you know, how do we stop people putting monkey emojis or any kinds of like abuse on, you know, because what happened what i think is happening from a psychological standpoint is they see liam pain they think he is up there on that mountain that is not a human being if i throw a rock and i hit i might get a little bit of

attention from him so they pick up a rock that's what i said to you at the start about bringing people up to your level in a way but it's not so much for them that they could they can get away from from from not saying something about that. You know what I mean? I feel they have to speak up about it and it's difficult. And we are going through a really fast moving era

with everything at the moment. I mean, you wish there was an algorithm that would just beat that, right? But they will find some way of spelling it differently and it'll just, you know. I think they verify everybody's idea. I think that would kill 99% of it.

Yeah, I actually thought of a thing for voting voting because voting for me was always a really difficult thing we all have our iphones we have our thumbprint that goes on why can't we verify via thumbprint to get accounts and then that's on your record there was that great black mirror episode where that woman's going through life trying to get these likes and she's like desperate you've seen that yeah oh my god please i need to be in this neighborhood but i know i was a five star this morning horrible crap on the way darling i'm sorry but that's what life will eventually be policed by i imagine in a way speaking of black mirror um i guess this is a strange tangent but um i when i had johan harry on the podcast last week one of the key themes here is that all this

technology and social media has like taken the meaning out of our lives because like dating now happens on these screens people order their food by like tap tap tap and it shows up at the door um even now with covid um we're now working from screens we we used to have an office or you know offices we could go to now it's all screens and it feels like the world is getting more and more i mean what's amazing is we we were also worried about technology pushing us away from each other or offices we could go to. Now it's all screens. And it feels like the world is getting more and more socialized. I mean, what's amazing is we were all so worried about technology pushing us away from each other when COVID hit, right?

But it was the only thing that saved us, thank God, when COVID did hit, which I thought said a lot more about technology's good sides than it did about the bad sides. I mean, it's up to you how you use your platform in the end and what you let it do to you. Like I say, I enjoy TikTok, but I watch a few videos and I watch things that people send me.

I don't really have a For You page. I don't really go through it constantly. Because there's, you know, I mean, it's difficult with kids and screens, man. I have one and I watch him and I'm like, oh, I really want to like, you know, we go, I make him go out and do stuff. And sometimes we fall out big. We have a row about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not, sometimes it's not good. But he's learning with it, you know, and it's, like you say, for all of us, we are the guinea pig generation for these things.

We're learning, you know, we're the first part of this organization to be affected by an algorithm. And to be connected. What about the people who first experienced hay fever?

They figured out their way around that, you know what I mean? It's like, for me, it seems like we will figure out the right things of it but it's weeding out the bad sides of it and what it does like i think if your tiktok screen is advice and videos about learning stuff or like stuff that you're actually really interested in you enjoy not just random funny

crap because that's what you've been framed was right you want to find yourself watching you've been framed all day really because that's what you're doing or even worse on instagram keeping up with the kardashians oh look she's amazing she's 10 out of 10 oh and she's rich oh her life's perfect and look at my life sat here in my boxy shorts here this pot noodle with my cellulite yeah but that's such an illusion because i bet you of course it's an illusion but it's an illusion designed to destroy your self-esteem isn't it and it's like yeah But I also think there's, I think there's a fine line between these things. And accepting everybody and all this stuff is a given. But I don't think that in the process of that,

we want to lose the thing to settle for ourselves. You know, there was a big debate about me on Loose Women at one point, which I was all right with. It was okay. I understood what they were saying. But I worked hard for for what i did in my underwear commercial you know and it was my it did overtake my life in certain respects yeah for sure it did but it was actually an aim of mine it's one of the only things i've ever aimed for was to try and do an underwear commercial so i remember i went to my meeting with the company i was working with and they were like

no no we don't want to do that with you and i was like no trust me just trust me and they gave they to be fair they put the trust in me i went and trained my ass off and i got myself where i wanted to be but then it was like people worrying about people's self-esteem looking at the picture and whatever else i get that but i quite enjoy the idea of looking at someone and being like wow he's that's cool man like i'm gonna go out and get that why did you want an underwear commercial i just thought i could do it i thought i could but i wanted to challenge myself in the gym to it was you know it's hard to be strictly about look in the gym sure they're not function which that was the bit i battled with myself a little bit but it's like yeah i i think you know

you want to go out and get it go out and get it it's it's it but i don't think we should like i say and accepting everybody let's not lose the idea of striving for something as well though because it's so right to say yeah i'm i'm perfect was that an advert i saw somewhere the other day and i thought are we really that narcissistic that we have to call all ourselves perfect for everyone to be okay with each other like and like i might get in trouble for saying some of this stuff but it's just like my thought is like i want to teach the next generation to strive for things as much as i want to feel them to feel confident in themselves but it's like it's almost like being a parent right you're gonna mess them up somehow like if we start saying we're perfect i guarantee next we'll be like well that's not worked out well so let's rewrite the plan on that one you know and it's i just think

everyone just you know give each other a break and just go do what you like have you have you figured because it's taken me some time um to try and understand what it is that actually makes me happy i used to once upon a time when I was broke. This is a big one. I was going to end on this big question, but I used to think it was like, oh, I'll get a Lamborghini and then I'll be happy. And like, that's why my book is called Happy, Sexy Millionaire.

Cause I thought that I wrote in the first page of my diary at 18. I wrote Range Rover, bear in mind, I didn't have a driving license. I was stealing Chicago town pizzas at the time. Range Rover sport will be my first car. I'll make a million before I'm 25. I'll get a really hot girlfriend and I'll work on my body image what i meant is i'll get a six-pack i just didn't want to write that and i thought that is the goal of life i get those things range over

was my first car made a million before i'm 25 and i'm like where is the confetti and if that's not it then what the fuck is life about i mean what happens when you wake up and every day is a dream i mean that'll mess you up i often have looked for the moment in life where i bang my head and i might be in some sort of comorous dream that i've invented for myself like that i was that messed up at some point i was like i'm sure this is a simulation guys i must have made this wall because i can't be here because of where i was yesterday yeah so it was you know there's those wild things that if you let them creep in they will F you up bad. Someone said something to me quite interesting the other day.

Our view of what we hunt for as humans has changed. We don't hunt for food anymore. We hunt for success. So it's almost like the target went from animals and corn and food to frigging Lamborghinis and that sort of stuff. But that's what we strive for now. Even to the point you were saying earlier about you're're so glad he was here because that supplements your food sometimes you're that driven by your drive that you forget you're going to eat sometimes and i was the same at work oh my god i'm terrible like i'm known for skipping lunch breaks and working

through the day to get home quicker because i can go without i'll just muster on through but think about that you've gone past your basic survival instinct to you're writing against your health for like yeah coins yeah exactly i might miss this thing that i'm exactly the same it's something i think that we struggle with in in this respects and it's like priority i don't know anything about what makes me happy at this point i really don't really no i've really i've i've found a couple of things that i think i'm interested in but like the thing is once you start making money on these scales and things that I think I'm interested in, but like the thing is, once you start making money on these scales and things that happen, it only becomes the drive that's interesting to you.

If it's going to fast forward you somehow. And that's not that toxic thing that we funny enough, we've come full circle, but that's, it's the same sort of thing. And I think, I think it's a big problem for me because if it's not, I'm thinking,

why am I? And that's why drawing for me was the biggest one at the time, i was like this is what children do why should i do this and then funny that i drew something that was about being a child was that it's weird how things go full circle in that respect but yeah it's i i often struggle to get on with something if i don't think it's forwarding me in life somehow rather than just enjoying the moment or going out and watching the sunset one of my one of my biggest things that made me happy while I was training was 4am, getting up in the dark. And this sounds like I am some sort of psychopath, and I was.

But you're like, go into the park, run for a little bit, and then stand on the thing and watch the sunrise. It was the best thing. And you know why? It's fucking free. You can stand and watch the sunrise and go, wow, thanks for another day sort of thing. I know that sounds really woosah and like really far out spiritual,

but for me, it wasn't like that. I just enjoyed seeing how beautiful this moment was. And I was the only person in Hyde Park running at 4am every single day. And it was the, some of the best time I've had in life. They've done studies kind of linking to what you're saying there, where if they give someone a game, and I wrote about this a little bit in my book, if they give someone a game that they enjoy people will do it and i'll have high motivation to do it if you then pay the same person to do the same game their motivation will decrease i have a big problem with this so you can love doing something and then the minute the reward starts to become extrinsic which is external which is money your motivation decreases and this is why it's it's very very important even

for me with this podcast i started it because i love doing it love meeting people when it starts becoming a commercial thing it moves into being a job and then the science says my motivation will decrease so it's interesting there because you talked about your drawing you started drawing because it was a and then it becomes this and it becomes an nft and it becomes a business and then it gets hard to do and then you're like oh my god i don't want to do this i'm here again yeah exactly yeah exactly you said you've not figured out what makes you happy definitely not yet now ask me in a few years and i i think i mean so what have what's my conclusive point been for what makes me happy professionally it's super clear for me now having a and these are keywords so a worthwhile worthwhile challenge that i'm doing with people that i love and i've i've come i've come up with that based

on a ton of things some of the things that you've said fit perfectly into it when you look at tyson fury when he's not in the gym depressed when you look at gold um olympians whether they win or lose at the olympics they get depression because they've reached the mountaintop and there's nothing else to strive for. And so when I was going through my notes, I was thinking the day that someone offered me 50 odd million to buy my business was one of the worst days of my life.

And Gary Vaynerchuk, I know you're doing some stuff with him. He says the same thing. When I spoke to him on the podcast, he was like, "'The day when I buy the New York Jets will be the worst day of my life.' He was like, I hope it happens on my deathbed because not having something to strive for and this has been a big struggle around for me you lose orientation yeah when you're training for the olympics we're going this way this is our purpose in life

when the olympics is over you ain't got no fucking direction you're like well i mean look at this i'm talking about direction my that whole thing for me and that mountain for me was 1D. And music after that, like I said, you're never going to keep up with what we did. Like we sold so many records and we did some, we broke so many records. We did so many things,

you know, I mean, we were in stadiums every day, 94,000 people every day. Like I was in like, I used to break into Wembley stadium on the nighttime cause it was fun. And I was smashed. And I thought these people aren't going to recognize me. I've broken into

every major stadium in America honestly and the people used to chase us on these like police like little squad bikes being like hey sir you're not supposed to be in here

and we'd run because it was like a game of tag I swear to god there was this one time we opened up a door and found a Zamboni you know the thing that squashes the ice

and we accidentally emptied the like two tonne of water on the floor I don't know I might have to pay for that now I for that um yeah so once you reach that height i suppose one of the reasons i struggled the most out of it is because you're never really going to reach that height again and then it's almost like uh limbo and also not knowing whether or not we're going to come back are we going to come back everyone's asking oh no no and it feels like pressure to come back it's almost like your your

parents going when's baby two coming you know what i mean it's like oh my god now we gotta have another one so that's that's wild to me and and and having to deal with that at a young age and it was i was always going to mess it up somewhere is what i would say about myself because that's like he says the worst day ever you know the day the band ended i was like thank lord for that and i know a lot of people are gonna be mad at me for saying that but i needed to stop or it would kill me um and i was like thank the lord and then after that trying to like funnel your way back into society be like hey guys i'm still here turning up at tesco's in a lamborghini like an idiot you know i'm like what the fuck am i doing and and and for a lot of that yeah i agree with a lot of that that that statement it's you need to have something to strive for

and i feel like i'm finding that a little bit more now and learning to relax yeah you've talked a lot about this learning to relax learning to just be you know a lot of people go be part of the moment man be in the moment and like i'm like this is bullshit but it's true if you can just sit you know and enjoy something for what it is for five minutes you tried meditation my ex uh cheryl is very big on meditation um she sent me one the other day and i got told off for not doing it again meditation gets me in trouble these days um no i need to i i i did a couple of things in meditation with my old personal training that were quite good but i just my mind's so fucking busy i can't shut it up like the moment i'm trying to not think about something like oh yeah but

what about if we just did this next week and i know you'll be exactly the same that's why i'm saying i'm like trying so fucking hard with this meditation let's do it together i'm showing up every morning i'm like steve close the tabs and every morning i'm sat there i love that on the fucking floor of my shower because it's like it's like it looks like it's from thailand and the water's pouring and I'm like, just don't think about anything. And then I'm like, I'm planning all that schedule in my head.

I'm like, Liam's coming for the podcast. And I'm like, what, what should I speak to him about? And then, you know, I just want what you do in the two senses thing where you like,

think of like what you can hear and what you can smell. I've tried all of them. I've tried this one with beads where you like hold the beads and you just move the beads through your hand. Oh yeah, the simulation. Yeah. I like the two senses ones. Not bad. It's good in the shower as well. If you like close your eyes and you just move the beads through your hand. Oh yeah, they're like the simulation. Yeah. I like the two senses ones. Not bad.

It's good in the shower as well. If you like close your eyes, then pick two senses of which you can choose like feel. Oh, interesting. I've not tried that. So your mind can only do two senses at once. So once you shut some of them off, that's technically meditation because you're in the moment.

But I still don't feel like I've had that. You know, I'm not a monk at this point. I wish I was. I think it's important though. I get it. I do understand it but i also think imagine if you could get your mind just to be in the present moment fully and just be if i could have done that at school i'd have been i'd have been top of the class but my mind's going oh yeah what are we gonna do lunch time i'm gonna i'm not gonna give up so i'm gonna keep trying every morning naked on my bathroom floor now that's what i want to keep doing it um worthwhile challenge with people you love so worthwhile you define it yourself right challenge means it can't be easy because then your motivation won't be high and then

surrounded by people you love for me that is where i've figured out my happiness lives and so upon leaving my company that i'd founded for 10 years now i'm like learning to dj doing a big theatrical play at the albert hall which we've directed and produced i'm just trying i'm throwing my hand at everything biotech no i'm the same you know and that's what i was thinking with you from what you were saying you're like you're never going to top that mountain so where's what is the mountain i mean we've done so many random you know the trip to namibia with was one of the things and we jumped we did a world first of a canyon swing in Namibia which was really crazy and wild and I thought I

might die on national television but that is okay um what else did we do I doing this NFT things really interesting um doing the online shows because we were one of the first people to really like pioneer with the companies and things you know my team were massive massive behind that um but it was almost like making a tv show every week with new songs and songs that i hadn't sang since whatever songs i'd never heard before and i just would turn up and do it and it really really really well and i loved that um i don't know i've had i think i've had many many many jobs i've got like a laundry list to the point where when the census came i didn't know what the hell to write i didn't want to write performer because i think it just sounds like such a bodge off job of like it doesn't it doesn't encapsulate anything that i actually do

i mean we design clothes for hugo underwear modeling loads of stuff so um do you think maybe you just need a really big fucking scary terrifying goal that you really care about well i mean someone did ask me to go and do Everest at one point. And I was like, I don't know. I might die on that one. But does that not make you a little bit like, right, now we've got something to aim for, get in the gym. Yeah, I mean, in a way, I'm already,

there's something I'm cooking up in my brain. I'm not going to talk about here. The case does come off, but I'm cooking something up at the moment. It's very gym orientated and I'm definitely going to give it a big, big go. Some things piss me off. Interesting. And I thought I just had to do it um I think the one thing I'll say what the one thing I'll say about success and about these things if I'm honest about happiness I think

it's learning to have respect for yourself I mean there's a lot of things people say about don't base yourself on others and never look at other people in that way which I actually think you need to throw out the window because there's when I was was like, it's almost weird. I learned it from my character design. When I was designing characters, I didn't start from nowhere. And how I learned to design characters was like, how do you make a dragon? If you've never seen one, how do you know what dragon they want? So they mix it with a, with a, exactly. This is funny. So they mix it with a lion, mix with a snake, mix with a crocodile, mix with a dinosaur because they're the ones that we have. So they base the ones that we have.

So they base them off of stuff. So I like look at people who are my heroes and I think, what is it that I love about them that I don't think I possess yet? And then that's how you know you can respect yourself. And I think that's the most important thing for me is if I get up in the morning, I respect myself. I go to bed on nighttime, I respect myself.

I'm happy. But certain things about my life, even this moment i want to change but it's like christian bale for example i love his acting go like go to and i mean some things he's done his career been really unhealthy when he did the machinist and stuff like that but i like that drive and i like the fact that he like buries himself into a role and stuff and i've never learned that quite yet so that might be one of the things i want to steal exactly if it's almost yeah it's like taking people's stuff but you're molding it into your own character

we were talking today about avatars which is obviously a huge market at the moment people spend so much time on their avatars on their games when they start something but in life you are your avatar you do whatever you want and it's like if you're making your avatar and you've got to go and do 10 free kicks to earn the next ronaldo boot you're like oh i'll get in there and do them the moment someone asks you to do something in life to earn something you're like your avatar and you've got to go and do 10 free kicks to earn the next Ronaldo boot. You're like, oh, I'll get in there and do them. The moment someone asks you to do something in life to earn something, you're like, oh, I don't want to do it. But it's like, that's why I was trying to think how we explain that to kids. But that's the most basic analogy I can come up with. You know? Children's book. Children's book. I had an idea for children's book actually,

but we didn't finish it. That's a lot of the things. Look at my, he's smiling at me. Well, then we've talked about so much today. so much so much inspiration and you know a lot of the questions i ask are based on it's amazing amazing conversation and um i really really respect and appreciate your willingness to be open and honest about all these things because you're helping so many people you don't even realize it i i do hope so you know and um i think you're just a tremendously inspirational guy you're you know an incredible entrepreneur which i don't think people are fully um appreciated yet because you're very you're not you've not sort of disclosed all of the investments and businesses you're involved in but i think that's certainly coming i think we

might have a bit of a uh a european ashton kutcher on our hands if i say so myself um but yeah thank you mate honestly you know you've been through what is a unique, just tremendously unique experience over the last decade. Nobody can understand it other than probably the boys you did it with. And from that, you know,

there's ups, there's downs, but this is life, right? And you sharing it has brought tremendous value for me. So I know it will definitely bring huge value for our audience. So I just want to say thank you. No, I think, mate, honestly, this has been one of the best chats i've had thank you and i'm excited to see what you bring to the table on dragon's den i can't

wait to watch it i'm buzzing i'm buzzing maybe you can come in with uh some of your ideas i know i'll come and pitch something you should be a dragon once i was actually maybe i'll come in in disguise we'll do one week where i'll like deck the out of you i'll just come on and be like right i've got this idea for swimming pools on roofs would you ever be a dragon um oh i think i'd be a terrible dragon i don't know i feel bad for people and one of them like oh no just like i'll buy it i'll take it thank you brother appreciate you i appreciate thank you you