Just two days before Liam Payne died after falling multiple stories at a hotel in Buenos Aires, the former One Direction star’s girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, left Argentina. The couple traveled to the country together on Sept. 30, according to TMZ, and shared numerous highlights from their trip to social media in the days that followed. But while Cassidy, 25, left Argentina on Oct. 14, Payne, 31, stayed behind and checked into the CasaSur Palermo Hotel, where he passed away on Wednesday, Oct. 16.
Cassidy has not broken her silence on Payne’s passing at this time, but in an Oct. 14 TikTok video, she revealed that the couple was planning to stay in the country for just a few days before returning home. Opening up about their trip, during which Payne said in one social media video he was having a “lovely day in Argentina,” Cassidy said she “was so ready to leave.”
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“Honestly, love South America but I hate staying in one place for too long,” she said. “And we were supposed to be there for, like, five days, turned into two weeks.”
Cassidy said she reached the point where she “was just like, ‘I need to go home.’” She eventually boarded a flight, revealing that her seat on her way home was 1D, and returned to Florida without Payne by her side.
As his girlfriend returned home, Payne remained in Argentina and checked into the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires. Details of his final hours remain unclear, but police said they received a call from the hotel following reports “of an aggressive man who may have been under the effects of drugs and alcohol.”
In an emergency call to police, Hotel CasaSur’s manager said the hotel had a guest drunk with drugs and alcohol who was “breaking everything in the room.” The hotel’s manager requested that police “send someone with urgency because I don’t know if the guest’s life is in danger because he is in a room with [a] balcony, and we are afraid he could do something that threatens [his] life.” The manager said the guest had been staying in the hotel for “three days.”
Buenos Aires police later confirmed that Payne was found dead outside of the hotel after falling from his third-floor balcony on Oct. 16. The fall resulted in “extremely serious injuries,” they said, adding that Payne was pronounced dead at the scene, per the Associated Press. According to PEOPLE, police are continuing to investigate the cause of his death, and an autopsy will be performed.
Payne is survived by his 7-year-old son Bear Grey, whom he shares with his ex, Girls Aloud singer Cheryl.
