Do various videos posted online show the funeral of former One Direction singer Liam Payne? No, that's not true: Payne's funeral hadn't happened when these videos were published in early and mid-November 2024. The footage presented as being taken at his funeral was recorded at other events.
The claim appeared in a video post (archived here) on Facebook on November 8, 2024. It featured footage of Prince William leaving what looked to be a funeral with a caption that read:
liam Payne Funeral memorial plan announced #liam Payne funeral video #onedirection #liampayne memorial plan #fyp #foruyou
#liampayne #onedirection #tragicdeath #hollywood #harrystyles #zaynmalik #niallhoran #ryanreynolds #deadpool #wolverine #galgadot #rachelzegler #snowwhite #liampaynedeath
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Sat Nov 16 21:13:45 2024 UTC)
Payne's funeral had not taken place at the time this video post and the others mentioned later in this fact check were published. According to the U.K. news outlet The Mirror (archived here), the ceremony would most likely be a private event in Payne's birthplace of Wolverhampton. Specific details were not publicly released by the time of writing.
Lead Stories performed a reverse image search on Google Lens of one of the stills of the video that showed Prince William and an unidentified woman. It led us to a similar image of Prince William and the woman published by Getty Images (archived here), which was taken in 2023, a year before Payne died. The title and caption of the Getty Images photo read:
Funeral Is Held For Sir Bobby Charlton
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 13: Prince William, Prince of Wales attends the funeral of Sir Bobby Charlton at Manchester Cathedral on November 13, 2023 in Manchester, England. Sir Robert Charlton, born 11th October 1937 in Ashington, Northumberland, is considered to be one of the greatest footballers of all time. He played most of his career football for Manchester United as a midfielder/centre-forward, after surviving the Munich air crash that killed 23 people including eight of his teammates. He was a member of England's winning 1966 FIFA World Cup team also winning the Ballon D'Or the same year. Sir Bobby died on October 21, aged 86. (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage)
More images of soccer player Sir Bobby Charlton's funeral -- which match additional footage in the video included in the post on Facebook -- can be found here (archived here).
Other videos featured on Facebook claimed to show Payne's funeral. One post actually showed the funeral of Polish singer Krzysztof Krawczyk; another post included footage from the funeral of Polish actress Elżbieta Zającówna; and other posts (here and here) used footage from Irish singer Sinead O'Connor's funeral procession.
Lead Stories has previously debunked a claim about there being a video of Payne's death, which can be found here.
