Liam Payne

Liam James Payne, born 29 August 1993 (age 18), is from Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. Born three weeks early to mother Karen and father Geoff, he has two older sisters, Ruth and Nicola.Until the age of four, Payne had regular tests done in hospital as doctors noticed one of his kidneys was scarred and dysfunctional. To help cope with the pain, he had 32 injections in his arm in the morning and evening as a child. Regarding his one functional kidney, Payne said "I have to be careful not to drink too much, even water, and I have to keep myself as healthy as possible." Growing up, his mother would juggle shifts as a nursery nurse to accompany him on all his auditions. As a student, Payne was heavily involved in sports, primarily trying out for various school teams. He eventually found his place on the cross country running team, coming first: "From then on I was training all the time and getting up at 6am to run for miles. At the age of 12 they put me in the school's under-18s team." Payne was bullied in secondary school and took up boxing lessons at the age of twelve.He was a music technology student at City of Wolverhampton College. Before The X Factor, Payne had once performed in front of a 26,000 crowd at a Wolverhampton Wanderers' football match.
Payne first auditioned in 2008 to The X Factor's fifth series when he was fourteen. He made it to the judges' houses, but Cowell thought he was not ready for the competition and asked him to come back in two years. Payne cites Justin Timberlake as one of his biggest influences. He also says he draws inspiration from Take That member Gary Barlow when performing. He is currently in a relationship with dancer Danielle Peazer. They met on The X Factor in 2010 and have been in a relationship ever since. The backing dancer for The Saturdays and Jessie J has received death threats and other forms of cyber bullying on social networking website Twitter, due to her relationship with Payne