Samuel Preston, lead singer of The Ordinary Boys, wrote ‘Live Forever’ and passed it onto Liam – years before the One Direction singer’s own fatal fall from a hotel balcony in Argentina in 2024
The writer behind Liam Payne’s song, Live Forever, has said the song was written about a fall from a hotel balcony. Samuel Preston, lead singer of The Ordinary Boys, revealed the track was inspired by his own near-fatal accident in which he fell from a second-floor hotel balcony in Denmark in 2017 following heavy drinking.
He later passed the song on to Liam, who released it in 2019, years before the One Direction singer’s own fatal fall from a hotel balcony in Argentina in 2024. Preston said he was shocked by how closely the circumstances of Liam’s death reflected the story behind the song.
In a new interview, he explained that the situation felt almost impossible to comprehend. He said: “[I gave the song to Liam] and then he falls off a balcony and dies. There are certain things that happen in your life where you just cannot believe this is a real set of circumstances.”
Speaking to The Guardian, Preston went on to describe Liam as “a very funny, sweet, kind guy. Misunderstood. A great talent.”He added: “I saw a lot of him in me, because we both suffered. I massively wish I’d been able to do more. But as for some kind of intervention, I don’t think I [had that role] in his life.”
Preston wishes he could have done more to help and that had taken the lyrics as a warning. He said: “[Live Forever] was me trying to say: ‘Look, man, this thing happened to me.’ But it’s hard to give people advice if they’re not ready to receive it.”
Preston’s own accident left him with multiple broken bones and a punctured lung, and doctors initially feared he might never walk again. After spending six months in a wheelchair and undergoing several surgeries involving metal plates, he eventually recovered.
However, he later developed a dependency on painkillers prescribed after the fall. He says that period of his life was filled with “dread and horror”, but ultimately he overcame his addiction after going through a difficult withdrawal.
At the time of his death, Liam was in a two-year relationship with his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy. Liam was previously engaged to influencer-turned-author Maya, and the couple had a turbulent romance between 2018 and 2022.
Following their split, Maya wrote a fictionalised account of her time with Liam in her novel, Looking Forward. Just days before he died, she posted a TikTok where she claimed Liam had been harassing her from various iCloud accounts. In 2025 she spoke out for the first time since his death in a bombshell interview and claimed the star struggled with “identity issues” when they were together, but insists she doesn’t “fault” him for his struggles.
She admitted Liam’s drug use was what “tore them apart” and claimed he “did things to hurt me in ways I’ll never fully understand”. Maya stated: “And through it all, I knew there were parts of himself he was struggling with – parts of his identity he wasn’t ready to fully face, even within our relationship.
“I saw the signs; I felt the distance. In the end, it wasn’t just the betrayals or the addictions that broke us – it was the realisation that I had spent years in something that was never what I thought it was. I don’t fault him for his struggles.”
* Follow Mirror Celebs on Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
