Horan’s knack for live performance has also proved useful during his three-season stint as a judge on The Voice, where he closed the loop on his reality TV competition days and mentored each of his seasons’ final contestants to victory. He also got really into golf. (Like, so into golf that he bought a golf management company in 2016.) Through it all, he was still getting on planes and living out of suitcases. But something about turning 30, then 31 and 32, startled him into a reflective state.
“When you’re going through something when you’re young, you’re kind of either breezing through it and it’s just happening around you or you’re constantly overthinking,” he says. “The older I get, the more grateful I’ve become for what I’ve had. Not that I wasn’t grateful before, I would say, but I was blown away. Just taking it in now at 30-odd is kind of a cool thing. To look back and look at all photos, look at all the videos, think about what you did. It’s pretty nuts. It’s crazy.”
As so often happens with age, some of Horan’s contemplation came under tragic circumstances. In early October 2024, while he was on tour for The Show, he met up with his former bandmate Liam Payne in Buenos Aires. Payne had been in town for a routine visa renewal, but timed the trip to see Horan’s performance so they could catch up.
“It was great,” says Horan. “Seemed in good form and we had a good laugh, good reminisce.” He thinks of something another former One Direction bandmate, Louis Tomlinson, said. “I heard Louis talking about this recently, it’s so true. It’s like you haven’t seen each other in ages and then you just fall back in like it was 10 years ago.”
After their reunion, Horan went on to finish up the South American leg of his tour, but according to reports, Payne got waylaid in Buenos Aires waiting on an issue with his renewal. Soon thereafter, on the afternoon of October 16, 2024, Payne fell to his death from a hotel balcony.
Reports of his passing spread quickly, stunning the band’s fiercely dedicated fan base, which immediately held vigils in Argentina and around the world. The news reached Horan while he was watching TV in bed at home. “I just remember getting a message,” Horan says. “And I was just like, What?… I just didn’t think it was real. Someone so young, you’re not expecting to hear that they’ve passed, especially someone that you’ve just seen. I just went back from shock to sadness to anger.”
