this ishtline. tonight seems to me that when i die, these

words will be written on my stone. >> one direction's liam payne, known for hits like the story of my life now, the story of his final days. >> a lovely day here in argentina. >> the singer and his girlfriend partying in paradise. capturing it all on social media. but those sunny moments turning dark. >> he was very frustrated and was smashing his laptop in the lobby balcony. >> bueno, vamos un poco de haga algo ending an unspeakable tragedy. >> how did the gifted pop star's life come to such a sudden and terrible end? plus, bethany joy lenz, known for the early aughts teen drama one tree hill, how the boys hero is his father now opening up about her time with the group in idaho. she calls the big house family a cult is doing the same thing that most religions are doing. >> it's mirroring this practice of giving people answers for life's big questions. >> calling it a dark time in her

life. >> after about a year, i was totally entrenched in it. >> what she says about her decision to leave the group and the possibility of a one tree hill reunion. >> any chance you would participate in a reboot? and i will get by. >> i will survive. >> remembering grateful dead co-founder phil lesh, credited with lending his melodic basslines to hits like touch of gray. >> nightline will be right back >> nightline will be right back it's all right just sinex, hhh! what is — wow! sinex. breathe. ahhhhhh! can neuriva support your brain health? mary, janet, hey! eddie, no. frasier, frank. frank? —fred, how are you? —fred! support up to 7 brain health indicators, including memory.

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>> good evening. thank you for k at the last days of one direction's liam payne. the pop star seeming upbeat and interacting with fans while on holiday with his girlfriend in argentina. but some coming in contact with payne say his behavior was erratic and troubling. here's nightline co-anchor juju chang. >> a lovely day here in argentina. >> a vacation in paradise. a pop star seemingly living the high life. now liam payne snapchatting his girlfriend tiktoking as they party their way through argentina. these idyllic days quickly turning to unimaginable tragedy. bueno, vamos un poco con temer haga algo. it's okay. >> but like che la ponga

suicida, he's not dead. >> his passing devastating fans worldwide. >> it's literally so heartbreaking. and my heart goes out to his friends and family in this time of loss, i feel sick. >> i want this to not be real so bad because everything in my life goes back to them. seems to me that when i die, these words will be written on my stone. >> the story of his life now. the soundtrack of their grief. >> we can leave forever. >> his death calling into question what is the price of fame? and how did such a beloved and talented star's life end in such a heartbreaking way? one direction. for one direction,

fame came fast and furious. >> this is so nice. we can't believe how many people have shown up in the cold for us. come on. liam. come on. >> so good. thank you. >> their debut album went multi-platinum, starting with their mega-hit lead single with liam out front in what makes you beautiful. you don't know you're beautiful, oh, that's what makes you beautiful. >> all these gorgeous guys with these beautiful voices pointing at you and saying, you don't know you're beautiful. oh my gosh, that was made in the devil's workshop. like that was inescapable. pop magic. >> they're causing the kind of screaming that we haven't seen >> it's the most popular band on the planet. >> one direction. here they come right now. >> but fame is a double edged sword. and even as the group sat on top of the world, liam reflected on how often he felt isolated on the diary of a ceo podcast. >> but it feels to me like when we were in the band, the best way to secure us because of how big it got was just lock us in

our rooms and of course, what's in the room? minibar. so at a certain point, i thought, well, i'm going to have a party for one. and that just seemed to carry on throughout many years of my life. >> one direction shot to stardom after the boys were brought together on the british reality show competition, the x factor. i love the way you've gelled as friends. >> i think you're the next big boyband after just five years of unprecedented global success with back to back hit records and sold out tours, the band's breakup was sudden and shocking after zayn announced he was leaving in 2015. >> i literally wake up and zayn is leaving spain, not after, the rest of the guys revealed they would be going on hiatus. >> one direction was made up of a group of individual singers who were told to work together by guys on a british reality show. none of them wanted to be in one direction, right? they all wanted to be solo artists. it was inherently a band that was going to break up immediately. as soon as anybody

in the group had an exit velocity, zayn, niall and louis hit the ground running with major solo hits, but harry styles would become the supernova of the group from the concert stage with hits like watermelon sugar, watermelon sugar, strawberries on a summer evening and baby you're the of june to the silver screen in films like don't worry darling, stop it, i'm part of something important, alice. >> liam's albums did not do as well as the others. >> liam had been riding with other bands and artists for years. his first solo single in 2017 was co-written with ed sheeran. >> you know i love it when the music stops, but come on, strip that down for me, baby. >> strip that down made it to the top ten on billboard, but his first album, lp1, didn't come out until late 2019 to mixed reviews. in the months

before his death, liam was still reportedly working on his second solo album, even as he made that final trip to argentina with girlfriend kate cassidy on his snapchat. liam talked about wanting to meet up with his former bandmate niall horan, who was performing a concert, and i think we might just go and say hello. >> it's been a while since me and niall have spoken. we've got a lot to talk about. and i would like to square up a couple things with the boy. no bad vibes or anything like that, but just we need to talk. >> the next day at the concert, fans captured video of liam in the crowd, some saying the singer was acting erratically. the two did meet up after the show. in this photo from liam's snapchat, with the caption reunited. >> people were looking at it through different lenses and now if you're looking at it from what we know now, you know a lot

of it. there's something that's like concerning. i had a glass of champagne and then on october 14th, kate posted about her return to florida on tiktok. >> while liam stayed behind in argentina at the hotel casa sera. >> palermo loved south america, but i hate staying in one place for too long. >> two days later, on october 16th, guests reported the star was acting out in the hotel lobby. >> earlier that day, there was an incident where he was very frustrated and was smashing his laptop in the lobby, and then the final time he came back down, he actually passed out in the lobby of the hotel. >> at some point, he made it back to his room. then around 5 p.m. local time, the hotel manager called 911 necesitamos an urgent porque bueno yo no sé si riesgo la vida del usted es una situacion. >> tiene balcon within minutes

before emergency personnel could even get there, the 31 year old star, falling from his third floor balcony more than 40ft to the ground. >> liam died at the scene. >> it's just a tragedy. it just should not have happened. a lot more life to lead the state police say testing confirms at the time of his death, liam had multiple drugs in his system, including the party drug known as pink cocaine. >> often a mixture of ketamine and other drugs like ecstasy and meth. he also had cocaine, benzodiazepine and crack. they also found an improvised aluminum pipe in the room. police are trying to track down the source of those drugs, investigators say. it appears the singer jumped from his balcony. they're investigating whether it was intentional. over the years, liam struggled with alcoholism. >> one of the reasons why individuals who catapult to fame might appear to be at greater

risk for addiction is just because of the fact that there's so much stress and scrutiny, they need some kind of outlet or escape it all came to a head in 2022 during an appearance on logan paul's podcast, where liam aired some dirty laundry about his former bandmates. >> i think it was well known within the band that i don't like taking a certain point. i made it very obvious. i'm not going to tell you how, and there was one moment where there was an argument backstage and someone, one member in particular threw me off at war. so i said to him, if you don't remove those hands, there's a high likelihood you'll never use them again. >> liam apologized for his remarks. >> i was so angry at what was going on around me and instead of taking a look inwards, i decided to look outwards at everybody else. >> and i just think, yeah, i just took it out on everybody else, which is just wrong really, and decided to take time off to seek help. >> liam shared that he was focusing on parenting his son bear, who he shared with cheryl cole and his music. in early 2024, he released a new single,

teardrops, teardrops falling down your face again. >> cause i don't know how to love you. when i am broken the shockwaves from the news of the 31 year old's death felt around the world. >> liam's dad had to fly to argentina to claim his son's body, his former bandmates posting a joint statement saying we're completely devastated by the news of liam's passing. we will miss him terribly. we love you liam. we have the narrowest part of the fans collective grief that with liam's death, the possibility of a one direction reunion now gone, it was a hope that even liam himself seemed to have one day. >> i miss being with the boys. that was so much fun. you know, we love the boys, but i'm sure, i'm sure there's time for that

to come back around. and my thing is, the more success we have on our own, the more success we're going to have together in the future. >> our thanks to juju. if you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text the national lifeline at 988. and for more on this story, watch impact by nightline. one direction's liam payne's final days now streaming on hulu. when we come back, one tree hill star bethany joy lenz opens up about the decade she spent in what she calls a cult spent in what she calls a cult how she got out. hey... how you doing? you're gonna love this property. the guy's congestion remedy? harmless. try this. mucinex 12 hour treats the mucus that causes chest congestion for all-day relief. don't leave! it's fine! ugh! i was worried about this side of town!

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lenz starred in one of the biggest teen dramas of the early aughts. but just as the show was taking off, so too was her enmeshment in a religious group. she calls a cult. she says it took her more than a decade to break free. here's abc's eva pilgrim. >> a cult is doing the same thing that most religions are doing the way they do. it might be a way that i consider extreme, but you don't. or vice versa. >> actress bethany joy lenz opening up about the hidden life. she says she once led. she's best known for her role as haley james scott on the early 2000 hit teen drama one tree hill. but behind the scenes, she was drawn to a religious group whose grip, she says, left her isolated for more than a decade. >> why tell your story now? >> my experience is that we really are drawn to group think because it's easy. >> in her new memoir, dinner for

vampires life on a cult tv show, while also in an actual cult, she describes her journey as a part of a group that members called the big house family. how did you find the big house family? >> it was just a home. home church like a home group, bible study and then it morphed with the entrance of a pastor from another state. i think he just saw a lot of young professionals and got dollar signs in his eyes. after about a year, i was totally entrenched in it. >> did you know that it was changing as you were a part of it? >> it's so hard to be objective when you're in the middle of a situation that feels good in a lot of ways. i didn't notice that things were changing in in a bad way. >> just after lenz joined the group, she got the role of a lifetime on one tree hill. >> one tree hill was a huge deal. yeah, one tree hill also had a hugely wholesome center to

it. >> and so i think that's what really drew me to it. >> lenz married a fellow member of the group, splitting her time between idaho, where the big house family was located, and the one tree hill sets in north carolina. on set, lenz said those around her expressed concern about her life with the big house family. >> and the more that they would ask, the more i would feel like they were judging me and the more i'd pull back. >> meanwhile, her character on one tree hill had a fairy tale romance. her love interest, nathan, played by actor james lafferty. >> we got married last night. >> you say in the book that your on screen marriage to nathan was happier than your real life marriage. >> there was this constant back and forth and this awareness that i am capable of butterflies and feeling excited and feeling loved and engaged by another person. and it's not happening

in my marriage. and it never did. >> lenz stayed, but after she gave birth to her first child, a daughter, she hit her breaking point with the bigamily. >> i said, i don't know what's wrong with me and why. i will allow myself to be treated this way, but there's no way in hell i'm going to allow this to happen to her. we got to get out. >> when she finally left her marriage and the group, lenz says she realized $2 million she had made on one tree hill was unaccounted for. >> what happened to all of your money? i would love to know that. >> i don't know. >> you talk about how those days after leaving were some of the scariest, hardest days. >> it's the nature of being a part of a high demand group is the isolation that happens. it's really hard to walk away from something like that and then reach out to people who you've pushed away and say, can we be

friends again? and the most beautiful part of it was every single person was just there with open arms. >> were you surprised that people showed up? >> i was. that was an amazing lesson in in grace. >> that grace extended to her by her one tree hill family. the 43 year old now forging fresh relationships with her costars on her podcast drama queens with sophia bush and hilary burton. >> you know, i was in a cult for ten years, and the discovery that, you know, ten years of recovery after that, the three also leaning into the renewed attention. >> one tree hill has received from fans rewatching and discussing the classic show earlier this year, bush and burton even teasing on instagram that a reboot of one tree hill is in the works. >> any chance you would participate in a reboot? >> i know one is in the works. i love tree hill. i under the

right circumstances, i could see revisiting it. >> lenz hopes her book will serve as both a warning and a reminder to her readers that with courage, anything is possible. >> i hope people will read the book, see how gaslighting works, how narcissistic abuse works, and be scared of falling into something like that. and turn on their critical thinking and leave it on. >> our thanks to eva when we come back, remembering the co-founder of one of rock's most famous bands, the grateful famous bands, the grateful dead's phil lesh be more capable? and more practical? be able to perform here. and here. make a statement while barely making a sound. and command the road, as well as what lies ahead. rs.

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>> and finally, tonight, lesh has died. was it worth it he was one of the band's original members credited with giving the legendary group its textured, melodic rhythm section in classics like truckin and touch of gray. the dead's music after the death of jerry garcia and various spin off bands with his signature