Harry Styles honors 1D bandmate Liam Payne with unreleased song two years after his death

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Harry Styles honored his late One Direction bandmate Liam Payne on the second anniversary of his death by dedicating an unreleased song to his friend during his Madison Square Garden residency on Friday, October 16.

Another former band member, Niall Horan, also paid tribute to Payne with a new single reflecting on their friendship and the grief of losing him.

Payne died at the age of 31 in October 2024.

Harry Styles honors Liam Payne with unreleased song

During the 23rd night of his 30-show residency at Madison Square Garden, Styles paid tribute to Payne while reflecting on the people who had helped him succeed in his career.

Looking at the banner commemorating his previous tour's record-setting 15 consecutive sold-out nights at the venue, Styles acknowledged the importance of the people who had influenced his life.

“There’s so many people in my life, friends and people that I’ve worked with, that I’ve never been able to do this without them, and two years ago today I lost one of those friends,” Styles told the audience.

“There’s so many more people behind it, so many people that’ve touched my life, in such special ways, I wouldn’t be here without them,” he continued. “I’m gonna play a song that I wrote for my friend about two years ago, if that’s alright.”

Styles then performed a never-before-heard song titled 'What Is Enough,' dedicating it to Payne. Payne died at the age of 31 after falling from a third-floor balcony at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

An autopsy report determined his cause of death to be “multiple traumas” and “internal and external hemorrhages.”

Styles and Payne rose to fame alongside Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Niall Horan in One Direction, which formed on 'The X Factor' in 2010.

The group became one of the biggest boy bands of all time before going on an indefinite hiatus in 2016, following Malik's departure the previous year.

Niall Horan pays tribute to Liam Payne in new single

Horan also remembered his late friend through his new single, 'End of an Era,' released on Friday, May 22, ahead of his forthcoming album, 'Dinner Party.'

The song reflects on their friendship and the grief surrounding Payne's death.

In the first verse, Horan sings, “We had it, pure magic / Remember what it was like / Time passes so fast that / I couldn't tell you goodbye.” He later reflects on how “things change overnight” and the “footsteps we can't rewind.”

The emotional chorus includes the lyrics, “Feels like letting go of / Things we're not supposed to / One breath and it's over / The end of an era.”

In a March interview with GQ Hype, Horan revealed that the song was a lullaby inspired by the grief of losing his friend.

He said he “went into hiding a little bit” after Payne's funeral to grieve privately and experienced nostalgia, fear and sadness while revisiting their photographs and videos.

Horan also reflected on the memories that only the two of them could share, despite having many people around them throughout their careers. “But we always said that only us have that experience, no one else has that,” he said.

The singer recalled spending time with Payne just days before his death, describing their meeting as positive. “It was great. [He] seemed in good form and we had a good laugh, good reminisce,” Horan said.