Louis Tomlinson will never forgive Logan Paul for the wrestler’s controversial interview with the late Liam Payne.
“I f***ing forever despise [Paul], horrible, horrible little f***er,” Tomlinson, 33, fumed in an Independent interview published on Saturday, October 18.
Taking a dig at Paul’s podcasting career, Tomlinson added, “I think that’s also the problem with some of this new ‘media.’ … I would like to think most journalists, some journalists have a duty of care.”
Luxury Handbag Shopping has reached out to Paul’s reps for comment.
Payne appeared as a guest on Paul’s “Impaulsive” show in May 2022 and quickly received backlash from One Direction fans for taking credit for the boy band and airing their dirty laundry. Among other comments, Payne called Zayn Malik a “dick,” admitted he and Tomlinson “hated each other” during the height of their fame and claimed one unnamed member “threw [him] up a wall” during a backstage argument.
In the days and months that followed, Payne issued multiple public apologies.
He first wrote to Malik, 32, via X in June 2022, “Listening back maybe I didn’t articulate myself as well as I could have. I was saying that there will always be things we disagree on but that I will always, always be on his side. That’s family. Zayn is my brother and I will stand by him forever.”
Payne then extended an olive branch to Tomlinson in March 2023, acknowledging he had been “out of [his] mind” because he was drinking whiskey on the podcast.
“I feel ashamed in those moments to not be as good of a friend as you have been to me,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “At least I have time now and I’m me again so will try and make amends.”
Then, in July 2023, Payne revealed he had spent 100 days in rehab, which gave him “a lot of time” to reflect on his polarizing comments about his former bandmates.
“A lot of what I said came from the wrong place,” he confessed in a YouTube video. “I was so angry at what was going on around me and, instead of taking a look inwards, I decided to look outwards at everybody else, and I just think I took it out on everybody else, which is just wrong, really.”
Payne died in October 2024 after falling from the balcony of his third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was 31.
A toxicology report subsequently revealed that there had been alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in Payne’s system at the time of his tragic death. Two people have been charged for supplying the “Strip That Down” singer with drugs.
All four surviving members of One Direction’s original lineup, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Tomlinson and Malik, attended Payne’s funeral in Buckinghamshire, England, in November 2024.
“It’s something I’ll never really accept,” Tomlinson told The Independent of Payne’s death, though he said it has “definitely” brought the band closer today.
