After kicking off a solo tour last weekend, Zayn Malik is keeping Liam Payne’s memory on the road.
The The room under the stairs artist paid tribute to his fellow One Direction alum, dedicating his song ‘It’s You’ to Payne in the late musician’s hometown of Wolverhampton, UK during his Stairway to the Sky Tour on Friday.
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“So I did something at the end of the show every night, and it was dedicated to my brother Liam Payne,” Zayn said on stage at the University of Wolverhampton. “Rest in peace. I hope you see this. Tonight we are in your hometown, Wolverhampton. This is for you, Liam.”
Zayn previously paid tribute to Payne during the first night of his tour in Leeds. “Liam Payne, 1993-2024. I love you brother,” read a huge message displayed on stage with a heart.
Before postponing several dates, Zayn previously paid tribute to his former bandmate in a heartfelt statement after Payne died aged 31 last month.
“Liam, I found myself talking out loud to you, hoping you could hear me, I can’t help but selfishly think there were so many more conversations for us in our lives,” he began. “I could never thank you enough for supporting me through some of the hardest times in my life. When I was missing home as a 17-year-old kid, you would always be there with a positive look and a reassuring smile, letting me know that you were my friend and that I was loved.”
Zayn added in part, “I lost my brother when you left us and I can’t explain what I would give to just hug you one last time and say goodbye properly and tell you I love and respect you dear. I will forever cherish all the memories I have with you in my heart, there are no words to justify or explain how I feel right now other than completely devastated. I hope that wherever you are now that you are well and at peace and that you know how much you are loved. I love you bro.”
Earlier this month, prosecutors in Argentina ruled out suicide as the cause of Payne’s death and charged three people. An autopsy showed his injuries were neither self-inflicted nor the physical intervention of others after he died Oct. 16 of multiple injuries and external bleeding after falling from the third-floor balcony of his Buenos Aires hotel room.
Afterwards The nation reported that Hotel Casa Sur staff called the police before the incident to report an “aggressive man who may have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol,” a toxicology report revealed multiple drugs in his system at the time of his death.
The three suspects, who have not been identified, are accused of “abandoning a person resulting in death, supplying and facilitating the use of narcotic drugs.” The judge banned the three from leaving the country, but no one was arrested.
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