By Mark Gray
4:30am PDT, Sep 27, 2023
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Liam Payne was rushed to an Italian hospital with extreme kidney pain earlier this month, and doctors believe an underlying issue is to blame.
The former One Direction singer had been on vacation with girlfriend Kate Cassidy in Lake Como when he suddenly became ill.
The Sun reported that Liam was transported via ambulance to a hospital, where he spent several days in mid-September undergoing emergency treatment.
Nearly two weeks later, his girlfriend shared a major update on his health.
Keeping reading to find out what happened and to learn how Liam is doing now…
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A source told The Sun, "Liam [Payne] is in a bad way but he's in the best place he can be and finally doctors will be able to get to the bottom of what is going on. Naturally he is gutted that his and [girlfriend Kate Cassidy's one-year anniversary] trip to Lake Como has been ruined but at least she was there to help him when he fell ill."
"Doctors have warned him not to expect to be signed off to go home for at least another six days," the source continued. "They want to do every test possible to understand the issue fully but they now suspect that there has been an underlying issue for a while that has been getting worse."
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On Sept. 25 , Liam Payne's girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, told a paparazzi videographer of the singer, "He's feeling a lot better. He's in good hands. He's out of the hospital." (DailyMail.com published a video of the brief interaction — which went down in London while Kate was shopping — here.)
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This is just the latest health scare for Liam Payne. Weeks earlier, he told fans he'd been forced to cancel his solo tour because of a serious kidney infection.
"Over the past week I've been in hospital with a serious kidney infection, it's something I wouldn't wish on anyone, and doctors' orders are that I now need to rest and recover," he said in a social media video. "I was beyond excited to come play for you guys. To all of you who have bought tickets: I'm so sorry."
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Liam Payne's mother, Karen Payne, is distraught over her son's health issues.
"We are all worried sick about it but we just have to get on. It's horrible — him being all the way over there. He's in Milan and it sounds like he'll be there for a week. I feel helpless," she told DailyMail.com.
"All we can really do is sit it out here and hope for the best. There is nothing we can do. We feel helpless. It's such a horrible situation and we just hope he's in the best place possible."
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Back in 2021, Liam Payne said he "hit rock bottom" after combining fame, alcohol and drugs.
"I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be. Where's rock bottom for me? And you would never have seen it. I'm very good at hiding it," he said on the "Diary of a CEO" podcast. "No one would ever have seen it."
Liam said things got very dark for him.
"There is some stuff that I have definitely never, never spoken about. It was really, really, really severe. It was a problem. And it was only until I saw myself after that I was like, 'Right, I need to fix myself,'" he said. "There were a few pictures of me on a boat and I was all bloated out. I call it my pills-and-booze face. My face was just like 10 times more than it is now. I just didn't like myself very much and then I made a change."
COVID lockdowns had a severe impact on his sobriety.
"Having a lot of time at home — I think a lot of people had this same sort of thing: alcohol. It was just getting earlier and earlier and earlier. Easier and easier to go to. What I've found more than anything with the alcohol is boundaries. If you're on Zoom, you can probably get away with being a bit tipsy, when you're not supposed to be," he said. "I put on so much weight. I was eating badly and describing it as a bulking period — 'I'm doing it for a movie role! It's all good!' That's the best excuse if anyone asks if you've put on weight. Say it's for a role. It's coming out 2022."
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Over the summer of 2023, Liam Payne revealed that he had been in rehab for more than three months. In a YouTube video, the former One Direction singer said he needed to "get well," so he checked into a treatment center in Louisiana.
"I was in bad shape up to that point. I was really happy more than anything when I arrived to kind of put a stopper on life and work. I didn't have my phone for nearly 100 days," he stated. "I didn't connect to the outside world at all and it was kind of prepping me for that moment. Upon leaving was actually the hardest point was turning the phone back on … because it was a little bit scary."
With that lengthy rehab stay behind him, Liam said he had "more of a grip" on his life.
