Liam James Payne (born 29 August 1993) is from Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England, born three weeks early to mother Karen and father Geoff, he has two older sisters, Ruth and Nicola. Until the age of four, Payne had regular tests done in hospital as doctors noticed one of his kidneys was scarred and dysfunctional. To help cope with the pain, he had 32 injections in his arm in the morning and evening as a child.He described himself as a "naughty boy at school." He tried out for teams, eventually finding his place on the cross-country team and coming in first. "From then on I was training all the time and getting up at 6 AM to run for miles. At the age of 12 they put me in the school's under-18s team." Payne was bullied in school and took up boxing lessons, saying he "needed to find a way to defend myself, I was, at 12 years old, fighting the 38-year-old trainer. I broke my nose, had a perforated eardrum and I was always coming home with a bruised, puffy face. But it gave me confidence. I got pretty good over the next couple of years." He was a music technology student at City of Wolverhampton College. Payne first auditioned in 2008 to The X Factor's fifth series when he was fourteen. He made it to the judges' houses, but Simon Cowell thought he was not ready for the competition and asked him to come back in two years. In 2010, Payne returned and auditioned with "Cry Me a River", receiving a standing ovation from the audience and Cowell. At bootcamp, he sang "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" before being rejected and put into One Direction. On the experience, Payne says "Normally when you put together a band they have some time to go away and do development but we had to do that on a live competition, in front of 20 million people. If you make a mistake in front of an audience like that, you get voted out. We had no room for error whatsoever. We had to grow up very, very fast." Payne cites pop star Justin Timberlake as one of his biggest influences. He also says he draws inspiration from Take That member Gary Barlow when performing. Regarding his one functional kidney Payne said "I have to be careful not to drink too much, even water, and I have to keep myself as healthy as possible." He is currently in a relationship with dancer, Danielle Peazer. They met on the X Factor in 2010 and have been in a relationship ever since.  In an interview with Now Magazine, Payne said "Danielle's amazing. All the boys love her — in a friendly way. Lately I've been able to spend a lot of time with her. It's hard when we go away, but she's so good about everything." On settling down, Payne said "If possible, with Danielle."