AJ McLean worked with the late Liam Payne on the upcoming Netflix singing competition show Building the Band, and he tells E! that he remembers the One Direction member as an “incredible human being.”
“He was such a talent and such a bright light,” AJ said.
Liam died Oct. 16 after he fell from the balcony of his hotel in Argentina. He died of injuries from the fall, but toxicology results showed that he had substances including cocaine in his system at the time of his death. He was 31.
AJ says Liam was “sober the entire time that we worked together—to my knowledge.” The Backstreet Boys member, who’s been through rehab himself, offered a reason as to why Liam may not have reached out for help if he was struggling.
“I know from personal experience, when you’re going through something like that, you don’t really reach out to people that are sober,” he said. “It’s not because you don’t want to, it’s you don’t want to be held accountable necessarily. So, I totally get where he was at. I’ve been there.”
AJ, who said that he “needed a good 30 minutes to kind of regroup” after hearing of Liam’s death, says that his “legacy will obviously carry on” through the series, when it eventually airs.
Meanwhile, The Daily Mail reports that Liam’s funeral will take place Nov. 20, and that it’ll be a private affair for just his family and closest friends, followed by a wake. The paper reports that Liam’s 1D bandmates, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson, are expected to attend.
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