Niall Horan pens moving song 'End of an Era' in tribute of Liam Payne

19 March 2026, 15:25 | Updated: 20 March 2026, 11:23

Niall Horan's album 'Dinner Party' includes song written in memory of Liam Payne. Picture: Capitol Records / Getty

By Abbie Reynolds

Niall Horan's upcoming album Dinner Party includes a moving tribute to his former bandmate Liam Payne.

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On June 5th, Niall Horan is releasing his fourth solo album, Dinner Party. Niall has explained how the dinner party refers to an actual dinner party where he met his now-girlfriend, Amelia (Mia) Woolley.

While a lot of the album centres around their love story, Niall has said that the dinner party was the starting point of a new chapter of his life. Tragically, within this chapter, Niall has had to navigate the grief of losing his friend and former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne.

Niall was one of the final people to see Liam before his tragic death, as Liam had been to see Niall during his The Show tour in Buenos Aires. At the time Liam had shared videos of him and his girlfriend Kate Cassidy at Niall's concert, singing along and dancing.

Now, in conversation with GQ, Niall has spoken about their final meeting in Buenos Aires for the first time.

Read more: Louis Tomlinson opens up about writing songs about Liam Payne on his third album

Niall Horan and Liam Payne in 2014. Picture: Getty

Speaking about seeing Liam during The Show tour, Niall said: "It was great. [He] seemed in good form and we had a good laugh, good reminisce."

Referencing another former 1D bandmate, Louis Tomlinson, he added: "I heard Louis talking about this recently, it’s so true. It’s like you haven’t seen each other in ages and then you just fall back in like it was 10 years ago."

Just days after their meeting, while Niall continued on his tour, it was revealed that Liam had passed away while staying in a hotel in Buenos Aires.

Niall shared that he received the news while he was watching TV in bed. "I just remember getting a message and I was just like, 'What?'. I just didn’t think it was real," he said.

"Someone so young, you’re not expecting to hear that they’ve passed, especially someone that you’ve just seen. I just went back from shock to sadness to anger."

As tributes for Liam began to pour in, Niall explained how he was flooded with "lots of photos and videos and things of us growing up together. And being nostalgic about it straight away, along with fear and sadness and all the stuff that comes with grief."

Then, after attending Liam's funeral, he said he "went into hiding a little bit" to grieve. This process included writing track 12 of his album Dinner Party - a song titled 'End of an Era'.

Niall wrote the song with Julian Bunetta and John Ryan - who both first met Liam and Niall at the start of their careers when they were in One Direction. Julian reflected on the songwriting process saying: "We rewrote it two, three times maybe, just trying to just get the essence of the feeling.

"We just kept working on it until we felt it was right. And I love it. It could be easy to not write about it because it’s a hard subject. It’s a hard thing to do. So I’m proud of him for doing it."

While Niall didn't directly reflect on writing 'End of an Era', he acknowledged that he is now writing "deeper" music with more emotionally charged lyrics.

"Something happens in your early 30s and you’re like, yeah, maybe subconsciously, you’re changing. Some of the songs are now deeper to me now that I think of it, really ’cause I’ve subconsciously been writing deeper lyrics," he shared.