LONDON (AP) — One Direction was one of the last boy bands from the age of mass-audience linear television and one of the first of the social media era.
That helped propel them to a level of fame comparable to Beatlemania, but with the constant scrutiny of a world of smartphones and streaming. The band members, still in their teens, had to cope with the fame, then navigate the aftermath of its split while trying to build solo careers — challenges that have received renewed attention in the wake of band member Liam Payne's death on Wednesday.
One Direction was put together by music mogul Simon Cowell after the teens auditioned separately for TV talent show “The X-Factor” in 2010. They didn’t win, instead coming third in a final watched by 17 million people in the U.K., a quarter of the population. But they were signed by Cowell and had the first of several No. 1 hits with the now-pop classic “What Makes You Beautiful” in 2012.
British radio host Kevin Hughes called them “one of the biggest selling U.K. bands since The Beatles, a huge global export and one of the biggest selling pop acts of the 21st century.”
One Direction’s appeal rested partly on the members’ cheerful, cheeky ordinariness. The late filmmaker Morgan Spurlock said when he directed a documentary about One Direction in 2013 that “part of the reason they’ve been so incredibly successful with their fans is that they are so incredibly grounded and normal.”
After five studio albums and 70 million records sold, One Direction announced an indefinite hiatus in 2016. All the members embarked on solo careers, with varying degrees of success.
Payne, who died at 31 after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina, became one of the main songwriters on One Direction’s albums. His first solo single, “Strip that Down,” a power pop track featuring rapper Quavo, was a Top 10 hit in Britain in 2017. “For You,” performed with Rita Ora, was a U.K. hit in 2018.
Payne’s debut solo album, “LP1,” was released in 2019, but didn’t make the U.S. Top 100.
Payne had a son, now 7, with the former “Girls Aloud” singer Cheryl — an “X Factor” judge during One Direction's season.
He was open about struggling with his mental health amid the pressures of fame. He spent time in rehab for alcoholism and in hospital with what he said were kidney problems.
After a period of silence, Payne returned with a new single, “Teardrops,” in March, saying in a statement that it “marks the start of a new beginning.” The song failed to chart and a second album was reportedly put on hold before his death.
Malik precipitated One Direction’s demise when he left the group in 2015, saying he wanted “to be a normal 22-year-old” for a while.
His first solo single, “Pillowtalk,” was released early in 2016 and topped the charts in both the U.S. and Britain. A duet with Taylor Swift, “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever,” was a hit late the same year.
Malik has released the solo albums “Mind of Mine” in 2016, “Icarus Falls” in 2018, “Nobody is Listening” in 2021 and “Room Under the Stairs” this year. The most recent adds a country sound to the R&B-pop on which he’s built his career.
Malik, who has spoken of struggles with anxiety and anorexia, has a daughter, born in 2020, with his on-off partner, model Gigi Hadid. In 2021, he was sentenced to 90 days’ probation after pleading no contest to harassing Hadid and her mother during an argument at the family home in Pennsylvania.
The affable Irish member of One Direction released his first single, “This Town,” in 2016, and debut album “Flicker” the following year. Showcasing Horan’s talent for tuneful pop, it topped Billboard’s album chart.
A second album, “Heartbreak Weather,” came out in 2020 and a third, “The Show,” was released in 2023, accompanied by a world tour this year — including a concert in Buenos Aires earlier this month attended by Payne.
Horan has also served as a coach on TV talent series “The Voice” in the U.S.
Tomlinson made his solo debut with the single “Just Hold On” in 2016. Several more singles followed before his debut album, “Walls,” was released in 2020. It was a Top 10 hit in the U.S. and the U.K., as was his second album, “Faith in the Future,” released in late 2022. Tomlinson released a live album, “Live,” in 2024.
In 2018, he appeared as a judge on “The X Factor,” the show that made him famous.
Tomlinson's other great love is soccer. He briefly played for his home town team, Doncaster Rovers, and he has been involved with the Soccer Aid charity fundraiser for UNICEF.
He has a child with ex-girlfriend Briana Jungwirth.
Musician, actor and style icon, Harry Styles is easily the biggest solo star spawned by One Direction.
He released his first single, “Sign of the Times,” later than the others, in 2017, but soon made up for lost time. His debut album, “Harry Styles,” topped the album charts in the U.S., Britain and several other countries, while the second, “Fine Line,” appeared in 2019 and included the Grammy-winning “Watermelon Sugar.”
His third album, 2022's “Harry’s House,” topped British and U.S. charts, won album of the year at the Grammys and the Brit Awards, and was nominated for the cred-heavy Mercury Prize. The single “As it Was” became his biggest hit yet, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for 15 weeks.
Styles’ profile has been raised by a playful, adventurous fashion sense that includes a fondness for 1970s-inspired three-piece suits and bellbottomed jumpsuits.
As an actor, Styles appeared as a World War II soldier in Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” before starring alongside Florence Pugh in Olivia Wilde’s dystopian thriller “Don’t Worry Darling.” It premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, where Styles’ red-carpet appearance drew throng of fans and the approving appraisal of fashionistas. He also starred in period romance “My Policeman,” which premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.
FILE - One Direction's Niall Horan, from left, Harry Styles , Simon Cowell, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne present the Music Industry Trust Award to Simon Cowell at the Music Industry Trusts Award (MITS) in aid of charities Nordon Robbins and Brit Trust at the Grosvenor House Hotel, in London, Nov. 2, 2015. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP)
Photos of former One Direction singer Liam Payne and messages from fans are taped to a tree outside the hotel where he was found dead after falling from a balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the morning after the incident, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
FILE - One Direction members, from left, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Liam Payne perform on NBC's "Today" show, Nov. 13, 2012 in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - One Direction's Liam Payne, second from right, poses for a photo with fellow band members Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in London, Sept. 6, 2011. (AP Photo/Jonathan Short, File)
HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man who could be the first person in the U.S. executed for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome is facing a lethal injection Thursday evening amid assertions by his attorneys and a diverse coalition of supporters who say he's innocent and was convicted on faulty scientific evidence.
Robert Roberson waited to hear whether his execution might be stopped by either Texas Gov. Greg Abbott or the U.S. Supreme Court — his last two avenues for a stay. He is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. A Texas House committee is also trying to delay the execution by taking the extraordinary step of issuing a subpoena for Roberson to testify at a hearing next week about his case.
Roberson, 57, was condemned for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence, backed by some notable Republican lawmakers, Texas GOP megadonor and conservative activist Doug Deason and the lead detective on the case. Roberson's lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia.
“He’s an innocent man and we’re very close to killing him for something he did not do,” said Brian Wharton, the lead detective with Palestine police who investigated Curtis’ death.
Roberson’s lawyers waited to see if Abbott would grant Roberson a one-time 30-day reprieve. It’s the only action Abbott can take in the case as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday denied Roberson’s clemency petition.
The board voted unanimously, 6-0, to not recommend that Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or that his execution be delayed. All members of the board are appointed by the governor. The parole board has recommended clemency in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982.
In his nearly 10 years as governor, Abbott has halted only one imminent execution, in 2018 when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker, whose father had asked that his son not be put to death. The father had survived a shooting Whitaker had masterminded.
“We pray that Governor Abbott does everything in his power to prevent the tragic, irreversible mistake of executing an innocent man,” Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Abbott did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
Roberson’s lawyers also have a stay request pending before the Supreme Court. The nation's highest court has rarely granted 11th-hour reprieves to people on death row.
The Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on Wednesday held an all-day meeting on Roberson's case. In a surprise move at the end of the hearing, the committee issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify next week. It was not immediately known if the committee's request could delay Thursday's execution.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, or TDCJ, is aware of the subpoena and is working with the Texas Attorney General's Office on next steps, said Amanda Hernandez, a TDCJ spokesperson.
During its meeting in Austin, the committee heard testimony about Roberson’s case and whether a 2013 law created to allow people in prison to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence was ignored in Roberson’s case.
Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, told the committee a court hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who rejected their claims. Mitchell said the prosecution’s case showed Curtis had been abused by her father.
“Based on the totality of the evidence, a murder took place here. Mr. Roberson took the life of his almost 3-year-old daughter,” Mitchell said.
Most of the members of the committee are part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state lawmakers, including at least 30 Republicans, who had asked the parole board and Abbott to stop the execution.
Roberson’s scheduled execution has renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome, known in the medical community as abusive head trauma.
His lawyers as well as the Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others, including bestselling author John Grisham, say his conviction was based on faulty and now outdated scientific evidence. The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.
Roberson’s supporters don’t deny head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and that new evidence has shown the girl died from complications related to severe pneumonia.
Roberson’s attorneys say he was wrongly arrested and later convicted after taking his daughter to a hospital. They say she had fallen out of bed in Roberson’s home after being seriously ill for a week.
Roberson’s lawyers have also suggested his autism, which was undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him as authorities became suspicious of him because of his lack of emotion over what had happened to her. Autism affects how people communicate and interact with others.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, other medical organizations and prosecutors say the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome is valid and that doctors look at all possible things, including any illnesses, when determining if injuries were attributable to it.
Roberson’s scheduled execution would come less than a month after Missouri put to death Marcellus Williams amid lingering questions about his guilt and whether his death sentence should have instead been commuted to life in prison. Williams was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter.
Roberson's execution is scheduled to take place on the same day Alabama is set to execute Derrick Dearman, condemned for killing five people with an ax and gun during a 2016 drug-fueled rampage.
Follow Juan A. Lozano on X at https://x.com/juanlozano70.
Elizabeth Ramirez, center, Casandra Rivera, center right, and Anna Vasquez, second from right, of the "San Antonio 4" group, deliver boxes with petitions in the Texas State capitol for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seeking the pardoning of Robert Roberson's execution, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Austin, Texas. Roberson, 57, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Oct. 17, for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence. (AP Photo/Nadia Lathan)
Casandra Rivera, left, Anna Vasquez, second from left, and Elizabeth Ramirez, center, of the "San Antonio 4" group, hold boxes with petitions being delivered in the Texas State capitol for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seeking the pardoning of Robert Roberson's execution, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 in Austin, Texas. Roberson, 57, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Oct. 17, for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence. (AP Photo/Nadia Lathan)
Texas man set to be first in US executed over shaken baby syndrome makes last appeals
FILE - Texas lawmakers meet with Robert Roberson at a prison in Livingston, Texas, Sept. 27, 2024. (Criminal Justice Reform Caucus via AP, File)
Texas man set to be first in US executed over shaken baby syndrome makes last appeals
