Overview

• In a new Times profile, Scherzinger says she and Payne exchanged light, casual texts hours before he died in October 2024.
• She learned of his death just before a Sunset Blvd performance on Broadway and continued the show, later adding a small nightly tribute in his honor.
• Reflecting on the loss, she urges greater compassion in public life and criticizes the pressures amplified by phones and cancel culture.
• Scherzinger first mentored Payne on The X Factor UK, helping form One Direction, and they later worked together as mentors on Netflix’s Building the Band, which aired posthumously with a dedication to him.
• Payne, 31, died after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in October 2024.