Zayn made this important decision after Liam's death

Since Liam Payne's death last Wednesday, more and more reactions from celebrities are coming to light. Most share that they deeply sympathize with the family, and that he was an incredibly sweet boy. The reactions from his One Direction bandmates took a little while to come, which is of course not surprising. The boys practically grew up together, in the eye of a huge storm of screaming girls that kept raging around them. Despite the fact that the boys haven't released music together in years, they are still followed by hysterically screaming girls, or now women, who totally adore them.

Liam is not the only one who has struggled with the spotlight

Zayn has also had problems due to all the attention and pressure that come with being a pop star. He has talked about it a bit less openly than Liam, but in his autobiography ‘Zayn’ he does share some of his experiences. He also used alcohol, but for him it was mainly the anxiety and eating disorders that made life difficult. He was also mentally quite overwhelmed, although it might have been a bit more intense for Liam. Zayn was supposed to start his tour in America soon, but he has made the drastic decision to postpone it for now. This is of course all related to the loss of his friend Liam, and processing his death, but it could also be that he is using this time to think about his own mental health. It must have been a huge wake-up call that one of his best friends was so deep in the pit and could no longer get out by himself.

Whatever has happened, mental health must be taken seriously

Somehow, it has only been recently that artists have started talking more about their mental health. For example, Billie Eilish, Shawn Mendes, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, and of course Demi Lovato. But there are many more big artists who have struggled with this. Perhaps what has happened with Liam will further ignite this conversation. And not just among big artists, but hopefully it will become less embarrassing for all of us to simply say: ‘no, I'm not doing so well.’.