Nicole Scherzinger Was Texting Liam Payne on Day of His Death 

Nicole Scherzinger was still in touch with the late One Direction star, Liam Payne, until the day he died, according to Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The composer, 76, who wrote the music for Broadway production Sunset Blvd. which stars Scherzinger, 46, made the comments in a Billboard interview published Thursday, October 24.

“I suppose something that hasn’t been said, and I suppose I could say, is that of course she mentored Liam, from One Direction,” Lloyd Webber said of The Pussycat Dolls star. “On the Wednesday when he died, she was still texting him that day.”

After hearing the tragic news of Payne’s passing, Scherzinger managed to follow through with her commitments to play Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd. that same night.

“She’d just heard that he died and the fact that she even did the show at all is extraordinary. I mean, she is an amazing, amazing woman,” Lloyd Webber told the outlet, “She is without any question one of the finest performers I’ve ever worked with.”

Scherzinger first met Payne when he auditioned as a teenager on The X Factor UK in 2010 where the singer was working as a judge at the time. She supported him from the beginning.

More recently, Payne and Scherzinger worked together as judges on a new talent competition series for Netflix called Building the Band. Destiny’s Child star Kelly Rowland was a fellow judge in the reality show while The Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean was host. Although the show was greenlit by Netflix in May and filming wrapped in August, it is unclear whether it will still go to air following Payne’s death.

Us Weekly confirmed on Wednesday, October 16, that Payne died at the age of 31 after falling from his hotel room’s third-story balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina. An autopsy report obtained by Us revealed that the musician died of “multiple traumas” involving “internal and external hemorrhage.”

Payne rose to fame on the UK version of The X Factor, on which he and bandmates Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson were formed into One Direction. The group went on an indefinite hiatus one year after Malik left the band in 2015.

“We’re completely devastated by the news of Liam’s passing,” the group’s remaining members wrote in a joint Instagram statement on Thursday, October 17, before each member shared their own individual tributes.

“The memories we shared with him will be treasured forever,” their message continued. “For now, our thoughts are with his family, his friends, and the fans who loved him alongside us. We will miss him terribly. We love you Liam. Louis, Zayn, Niall and Harry.”