One Direction star Liam Payne has confessed that he nearly lost an ear due to an over-eager fan.

The boyband have legions of devoted Directioners but it seems one fan in particular got a little too hands-on during the group's European Take Me Home tour.

Payne told the Metro that a female devotee tried to tug off one of his ears, revealing:

"One girl tried to pull my ear off in a shopping centre in Amsterdam. Sometimes you’re just going through a crowd and they grab what they can. One girl got my ear and just went for it. I was like “That’s mine! I’ll be keeping it!'."

He added: "European fans don’t get to see us often and there’s a lot of places we’ve never been to and there will be places where there are people who have waited three years to see us."