Liam Payne was a global star as a member of the band One Direction but in the central English village of Codsall where his parents live, locals said Thursday that he was always "one of us".
Residents voiced a mixture of shock and sadness a day after the 31-year-old's death in a fall from a third-floor hotel balcony in Argentina.
"I think everybody's talking about it because everybody knows Liam. Knows of Liam... because he was one of us. Very sad. Very sad," said Maria Davies, 67.
"He was very friendly actually, wasn't he? Shy at first before he was famous," she said, expressing sympathy for his parents and seven-year-old son.
The singer, who grew up in the Bushbury area of nearby Wolverhampton with his parents and two sisters, was 16 when he set on the path to fame after appearing on the British television talent contest The X Factor in 2010.
The programme teamed Payne with the other One Direction members, who together went on to sell more than 70 million records worldwide.
His family later moved to Codsall.
"I was shocked, because we all watched the original programme," said Jean Knowles, a 78-year-old pensioner.
"We always viewed him as a quiet one, so I was shook rigid by the fact of his age to start with... what a tragedy," she said.
The singer had spoken of his struggles with alcohol and the difficulties of coping with such early fame.
"Celebrity. Was it too much to deal with? I don't know," Knowles said, adding that she had seen the reports of drugs allegedly being found in his hotel room in Buenos Aires.
"You don't know if it's fake news or real do you?" she said.
