As one fifth of the original One Direction boyband line-up, Liam Payne looked like he had it all as his career started to soar following his appearance on X Factor in 2010. However, the singer has since spoken of his struggle with mental health during his time in the band.

Liam PayneLiam Payne struggled with mental health issues during his time in One Direction

Liam - who welcomed baby son, Bear, into the world with former X Factor judge, Cheryl Tweedy, eight months ago - admitted he struggled to cope with the band’s unprecedented success and forced fake smiles during a number of performances.

The star was just 16 when One Direction came third on the seventh series of X Factor and he has since explained the constant workload as their popularity soared proved "too much".

Now 24, the singer has spoken to The Sun about the difficulties he faced and said: "I shouldn’t have been able to do as many shows as we did, if I’m honest about it, if I’m brutally honest about it.

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"Going out and putting that happy smile on my face and singing the songs, honestly, sometimes it was like putting on one of those costumes, going out there and, underneath the costume, people don’t really see what’s going on.

"The more we did, I just don’t think we stopped and celebrated enough how great things were and I think that’s what got on top of us in the end.

"It was like, 'Oh, you’ve just won three EMAs, but get on the plane and go to the next place'."

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Liam said the tipping point came when he split from his ex-girlfriend Sophia Smith in October 2015 and the band cancelled a show in Belfast citing the reason that Liam was "ill".

However, since he has settled down everything has changed. Speaking of his life now, Liam said: "I'm a totally different person now."