For One Direction fans, Liam Payne’s death is a ‘watershed’ moment

Elena and Vanessa Robustelli listen to One Direction so much that even eight years after the boy band broke up, its songs still make it on their annual Spotify Wrapped lists.

But Wednesday, said the twin sisters, 25, the music they normally turn to for comfort became a source of grief after news broke that band member Liam Payne had died at age 31.

“It’s really hard,” said Vanessa Robustelli, who lives in New York City. “What do you do with grief when it’s somebody that you don’t know but you have this really dull ache in your chest?”

Payne’s death came as a shock to thousands of One Direction fans, known as Directioners, who did not expect to lose their idol at such a young age. Payne fell from the third floor of a hotel in Argentina, local authorities said.

Many One Direction fans were tweens and teens when the band started taking off in the early 2010s on the heels of its appearance on the U.K. reality competition show “The X Factor.”

To them, Payne’s death was a “watershed moment” — one that both reminded them of their youth and made them suddenly feel like adults.

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