AJ McLean Says He Heard Liam Payne’s Unreleased Music Before One Direction Star’s Death: ‘It’s Beautiful’

Liam Payne may no longer be with us, but fans do still have his music to hold onto — and according to AJ McLean, there’s more material left in the vault that he hopes fans will get to hear someday.

In an interview with Today published Thursday (July 3), the Backstreet Boys star said that Payne shared unreleased music with him before the “Strip That Down” singer died after suffering a fall from a hotel balcony last fall. “He was just an absolute sweetheart, witty, funny,” McLean said. “He sent me an unreleased body of work to get my opinion on it — and I never put that out there.”

“I thought that was really sweet that he would entrust someone that he’s still learning about to give their opinion,” McLean continued. “I thought it was a great body of work. And I hope that the world and that the fans get to hear it somewhere down the road. It’s beautiful, beautiful music.”

Before his death, Payne and McLean became friends while working on Netflix’s Building the Band, a competition series that found both boy band stars coaching hopeful singers looking to form musical groups based only on vocal ability, not appearance. Filming for the series wrapped in August 2024, two months after which the X-Factor alum died in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

At the time of his fatal fall from the fourth floor of his hotel room, Payne had high levels of alcohol and multiple other substances in his system, according to toxicology reports. The star was open about his struggles with sobriety during his lifetime, something McLean says connected him with Payne.

“Honestly, we had a lot of parallel life experiences, [despite] our age gap,” McLean told Today. “But we definitely, I feel, lived very parallel lives, both sober and not sober.”

With the blessing of Payne’s family, Building the Band will air on Netflix on July 9. Nicole Scherzinger serves as the lead judge and mentor on the show, while Payne, McLean and Kelly Rowland joined as guest judges.

After a trailer for the series dropped in June, Payne’s sister took to Instagram to share her feelings about seeing her brother onscreen. “Im heartbroken he never got to see how great he is in this show,” Ruth Gibbins wrote at the time. “He knew he had done a good job, we all told him this when we were at filming, but watching it back, wow!”