Liam Payne is sharing how no member of One Direction can drag him down.
The "Strip That Down" singer reflected on his boy band experience during the May 31 episode of impaulsive with Logan Paul sharing that he was known in the group for "not taking s—t." However, according to Liam, his boldness would sometimes cause tension within the band, which comprised of himself, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan.
"There was one moment where there was an argument backstage and one member in particular threw me up a wall," he recalled. "So I said to him, ‘If you don't remove those hands there's a high likelihood you'll never use them again.'"
Liam noted that the bandmate did eventually take his hands off of him. While he did not name the specific bandmate he tussled with, Liam did share how he currently feels about the other boys.
"Louis was wild," Liam recalled of the singer in the early days of the band. "He wanted to be wild, that's his spirit. He's my best mate now but in the band, we hated each other—like, to come to blows hate each other."
Despite admitting that they were "close" to coming to blows on past occasions, Liam said he now respectsLouis, 30, for finding his voice over the course of the band's career, which dissolved in 2015. The 28-year-old added, "He made all the right choices that I wouldn't have made."
Elsewhere in the podcast, Liam shared shared his candid thoughts with Zayn. After Logan recounted a 2020 incident involving his brother Jake Paul and the "PILLOWTALK" singer in Las Vegas, during which Zayn was accused of having an "attitude," Liam said, "There's many reasons why I dislike Zayn and there's many reasons why I'll always, always be on his side."
He went on to put himself in Zayn's perspective, explaining that while his own "parents are overly supportive to the point where it's annoying at times," his former bandmate "had a different upbringing in that sense."
"You can always look at the man for where he is and say, 'Oh yeah, whatever, that guy's a d--k,' right?" he continued. "But at the end of the day, once you understand what he's been through to get to that point, and also whether or not he actually even wanted to be there."
Liam added that he gets what it is like to be "misunderstood," so he relates to Zayn to an extent.
"Listen, I don't agree with any of his actions," Liam said. "I can't commend some of the things that he's done. I can't be on his side for that. What I can say is I understand and your only hope is that at some point in their life the person on the other end of the phone wants to receive the help that you're willing to give them."