FORMER 1D STAR ON LOST PAL

After nearly three years since his last tour, Harry Styles came back with a bang at the Brits on Saturday.

- BY MARK JEFFERIES Showbiz Editor

But his time out of the spotlight has been a period of change, reflection and heartbreaking tragedy.As he reached his thirties he relocated to Rome to reassess his life. And at the end of 2024, his One Direction bandmate and close friend Liam Payne died after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was just 31.

Harry struggled to speak publicly about his heartache at the time, but now describes Liam as a “super-special person”, adding: “It's difficult to lose any friend but it’s so difficult to lose a friend who is so like you in so many ways.

"I saw someone with the kindest heart who just wanted to be great.

"It was a really important moment for me in terms of taking a look at my life and being able to say to myself, 'OK, what do I want to do with my life? How do I want to live my life?'

"And I think the greatest way you can honour your friends who pass away is by living your life to the fullest.”

Of his life in Italy, he says: “It just was a place that, for me, I was able to slow down for the first time.

"Sitting down to have a coffee doesn't mean I was sitting down to have a coffee all day. I was doing other things also.

"To me, it wasn't about the coffee. It wasn't about the thing. It was about the appreciation that is in the way of life there of, like, how special they treat food, how special they treat their relationships with each other, how special they treat time that is spent together.