I had a front-row seat to One Direction’s rise to fame — here’s how drugs, girls and stress tore them apart

One Direction found fame inside a nondescript North London TV studio, next to a McDonald’s and opposite a kebab shop — and I had a front row seat for the making of the world’s biggest boy band.

Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik were just teenagers in 2010 when they were brought together as a band on “The X Factor,” Simon Cowell’s talent show that aired in the UK on Saturday nights.

As TV Editor at The Sun, one of Britain’s best selling newspapers, I would regularly sit backstage, gossiping with Cowell and judge Louis Walsh in their dressing rooms. (Cowell always puffed on his trademark Kool menthol cigarettes, despite a studio ban on smoking.)

And I was often in the audience as the band performed for an average of 14 million TV viewers per episode.

The five boys formed an instant brotherhood. And Payne — who tragically died on Wednesday after falling from a third-floor balcony at a Buenos Aires hotel — immediately became the “ringleader” of the band, one former show staffer told me.

But once the boys left the show and found global fame, “That’s when it all went to s–t,” the staffer recalled.

Substances, egos and stress — not to mention fame itself — tore apart their brotherly bond. When the band broke up in 2016, it only got worse. And Payne, who had been a prolific co-writer in the band, never reached the solo career success of Styles, Horan or Malik.

“Liam moved to the US,” the staffer said. “He had no friends. He was surrounded by yes men and no one knew how to say no to him.”

Tragedy, the staffer said was “inevitable. He was so far from what really matters — and not realizing how f—ed up he was.”

Sources told Page Six that, in the days before his death, Payne was suffering from a “very significant drug addiction” — and surrounded by young staffers keen to get him back on the road and making money.

“They were really pushing him to go on the road and back on tour and he was only just out of rehab,” said a well-placed industry source.

The One Direction star discovered he was dropped by his record label, Universal, just over a month ago, I’m told, and was subsequently let go by his London-based publicist.

Payne was just 14 when he first auditioned for “The X Factor” in 2008 with “Fly Me To the Moon,” but didn’t reach the live show rounds.

“Liam’s mom, Karen, used to phone us all the time,” revealed a former “The X Factor” producer, “begging us to let him come back on the show.”

When Payne returned two years later, viewers watched the judges assemble a boy band as if playing God. Placing Styles and Horan’s photos together, Nicole Scherzinger gasped, “Yes! they are going to be the cutest boy band ever, the little girls are going to love them!”

Each week, the boys would perform at Fountain Studios in Wembley, in the gray suburbs of North London, which is hardly the showbiz center of the world.

They would come bounding backstage after the show, spilling over each other like overeager puppies, to be reunited with their families in the crowded cafeteria.

In no time, teenage girls began to flock outside the studios.

Although Cowell always told me he believed 1D would win, they came in third place — behind singers Rebecca Ferguson and winner Matt Cardle. I was at the finale as cameras caught Styles whispering to Cardle: “Think how much p—y you’re going to get!”

Aware he had something huge, Cowell signed the band to his Syco record label. One Direction’s debut album, “Up All Night,” was released in 2011 and reached No. 1 in 16 counties, including the US. Suddenly, they were the biggest thing in the world. They set out on tour. Then another album the next year. Another tour. Another album in 2013. Another tour.

But behind the scenes, all that fame was hard to live with — especially on the road.

Payne later revealed that being “locked” inside his hotel room, unable to go out because of crazed fans, was the start of his struggles with alcohol.

In an interview with the “Diary of a CEO” podcast in 2021, Payne said he had abused “pills and booze” and had “moments of suicidal ideation” during the peak of the band’s wild success, admitting he was not sure “how far [his] rock bottom” was going to be.

“In the band … the best way to secure us, because of how big we’d got, was just to lock us in our rooms. What’s in the room? A mini bar,” he said of life on the road.

Being “trapped” in “lonely hotel rooms … really f—d me up,” Payne added.

He wasn’t the only one.

Malik has spoken and written about his struggles with panic attacks and an eating disorder while in the band, and how he coped by turning to marijuana.

One insider who worked frequently with the band told me that Malik’s marijuana use made him “paranoid” — with things eventually getting so bad that Styles refused to share a tour bus or jet with him.

“He’d just be on the tour bus [smoking] all the way to the venue. It led Harry to get a separate tour bus with Niall and Liam — Louis would join Zayn,” the insider said.

“Zayn wasn’t happy in the band, it wasn’t for him,” the insider added. “He didn’t like the whole constantly touring thing and being given a schedule.

““In the beginning, Zayn was quite sweet. He just became a different person. When you are smoking weed to that extent, it really affects you. He was just so difficult that he wouldn’t turn up for stuff, like photo shoots or even gigs. He would block himself in the house, smoking loads of weed, and it made him really unreliable,” said the insider.

“You just didn’t know when Zayn was going to turn up, whether for a recording session or a concert,” said a record executive who worked with the band.

According to the insider, Malik “was very aggressive towards the end of the band, having fierce rows with people he worked with.”

In March 2015, Malik quit the band, later telling the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that the band members had grown “sick of each other.”

By that time, Styles and Tomlinson reportedly had a massive falling out which they have never spoken of, while Payne was said to be at his “breaking point” due to the relentless schedule — with a “backstage meltdown” causing the cancellation of a gig in Belfast in 2015.

The Sun reported that, as Payne battled to save his relationship with high school girlfriend Sophia Smith, he pulled out of the Attitude Awards hours before he was due to accept a trophy. He blamed sickness but was spotted later that night in a local market.

After selling more than 50 million records, One Direction went on a permanent hiatus in 2016.

Their solo careers have met varying degrees of success.

Under the impeccable management of Hollywood music manager Irving Azoff’s son Jeffrey, Harry Styles has soared. His three albums have seen chart-topping debuts, he’s had inescapable songs like 2022’s “As It Was,” he’s won three Grammys, and he’s branched into acting with movies such as “Don’t Worry Darling.”

But even his lyrics have revealed a dark side.

“Answer the phone/ Harry, you’re no good alone/Why are you sitting at home on the floor?What kind of pills are you on?” he sings on “As It Was,” making it clear his loved ones have worried about him.

Tomlinson and Horan have had moderate chart success and the latter landed a high-profile stint as a judge on “The Voice” that ended last year.

Malik initially scored big hits with the song “Pillowtalk” and duets with Taylor Swift and Sia, but lost his record contract with RCA after his third solo album, “Nobody Is Listening,” failed to light up the charts in 2021, only reaching No. 44 on the US Billboard 200.

He’s more recently reinvented himself, adopting a Nashville sound for this year’s “A Room Under the Stairs,” which debuted at No. 3.