Liam Payne told his fans how his girlfriend was leaving Argentina during his chaotic final days after he was served with cease and desist letters by his ex-fiancée Maya Henry.
The 31-year-old, who shot to global stardom with the band One Direction, plunged to his death after falling from a third-floor balcony at a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Wednesday, October 16.
Wolverhampton-born Payne had arrived in South America with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy on September 30, staying in Argentina for two weeks after only planning to spend ‘five days’ there.
During their extended trip, Payne was reunited with Niall Horan after going to watch his former bandmate perform at the Movistar Arena, Buenos Aires, on October 2.
On October 12, Ms Cassidy, 25, posted a TikTok documenting her return to Florida, with Payne staying behind and checking into the £230-a-night Casa Sur Hotel alone.
Just 48 hours before his death, on October 14, it emerged that Payne’s ex-fiancée, Ms Henry, had started legal proceedings against Payne, accusing him of obsessively contact and ‘weaponising’ his fans against her.
Two days later, Payne posted several social media videos, including one where he jokingly called his girlfriend a ‘loser’ for going home. Hours later, police were called to the hotel following reports of an ‘aggressive man who could be under the influence of drugs or alcohol’.
‘Erratic’ Payne, who had been staying at Casa Sur for ‘two or three days’, fell to his death from the third-floor of the hotel just after 5pm local time on Wednesday.
It comes as:
OCTOBER 16: A purported final photograph of Liam Payne at the the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires shows the singer leaning against a wall wearing a white sleeveless top with his tattoos visible
OCTOBER 2: A heartbreaking video shows Liam Payne singing and dancing with his former bandmate Niall Horan, where he later posted a picture with Horan to Snapchat captioned: ‘Reunited’
OCTOBER 16: Liam’s final Snapchat post showed him happily posing with his bikini-clad partner Kate Cassidy – with the throwback photo previously shared by Kate to mark his 30th birthday last year
OCTOBER 16: Payne said he was ‘happy to have some time away’ less than an hour before he fell to his death
OCTOBER 16: The singer died on Wednesday after falling from his room at the Casa Sur Palmero Hotel in Buenos Aires (pictured in a Snapchat post shared hours before his death)
OCTOBER 16: Hours before his death, Payne and his girlfriend were seen joking about having lie-ins until 12pm. They appear to be old videos as Ms Cassidy had gone home to Florida at this point
OCTOBER 16: Liam Payne and Kate Cassidy were seen enjoying ‘quality time’ and joking about Halloween costume ideas in videos posted on the day Payne fell to his death
A hotel reception worker had made a distressing 999 call requesting ‘urgent’ assistance before Payne fell 45ft to his death.
The hotel worker made two calls, saying in the first: ‘We have a guest who’s off his head on drugs and is destroying everything in his room. We need someone to come.’
He then phoned back after the line went dead, saying: ‘I don’t know if the guest’s life is in danger. The room has a balcony and we are afraid he might do something.’
Payne was said to have been ‘acting erratically in the hotel lobby and smashed his laptop’ before he ‘had to be carried back to his room’, according to local media.
Seconds later the employee, who identified himself as Esteban, added: ‘Just send an ambulance, only an ambulance.’ Workers had heard a loud sound in the courtyard before the singer’s body was discovered just after 5pm local time (9pm UK time).
Payne had been in Argentina with his Ms Cassidy – and the One Direction star shared a series of social media posts with her in the moments before his death.
The star’s final Snapchat post showed him happily posing with bikini-clad Ms Cassidy as they looked into a mirror. And further videos show him enjoying a late breakfast in his hotel room, where the couple had been ‘waking up at 12pm every day’.
He filmed himself at the breakfast table with Kate where he joked about his partner leaving her hat on the table.
He gave followers a tour of the room he was staying in with Ms Cassidy, who he had been dating since October 2022.
‘Haha, loser, weirdo,’ he joked in reference to her leaving Argentina.
‘Obviously, we’re going to go home and see our dog,’ he said.
Ms Cassidy joked about having lie-ins every morning, saying: ‘We literally sleep in every day until like 12… we’re such losers.’
A further tragic selfie was captioned: ‘Lovely day in Argentina’ before the star shared a photo of his hotel, writing: ‘Happy I got some time away’ followed by a heart emoji.
He shared a further photo with Kate captioned: ‘Quality time.’
The videos appear to have been posted days after they were filmed, as they feature Kate who had returned home to Florida on October 14, with the singer checking into Casa Sur alone, sources told TMZ.
On Monday, Kate shared a video on TikTok revealing that she was flying back home after spending two weeks with Payne in Argentina.
She added that she had originally planned to stay in Argentina for ‘five days,’ and she was ‘so ready to leave.’
‘I was just like, I need to go home,’ she said in the video, which documented her flight back to the US.
‘Honestly, love South America but I hate staying in one place for too long. And we were supposed to be there for, like, five days, turned into two weeks.’
‘I was so happy to be home,’ she added on TikTok. ‘It was so relieving.’
Liam Payne’s ex-fiancée Maya Henry had served the singer with cease and desist papers last week, it was revealed on Monday
OCTOBER 14: Liam Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy had left the singer in Argentina to return to the US just two days before his death
OCTOBER 14: Kate made a joke about always being sat in seat ‘1D’ – a reference to One Direction
OCTOBER 14: Kate had shared a video on TikTok revealing that she was flying back to her home in Florida after spending two weeks with Liam in Argentina
She also noted how her seat on the flight home was 1D – a reference to Payne’s former band.
In further videos before his death, Payne spoke to followers about his plans for the day, saying it was a ‘lovely day in Argentina’.
He added: ‘Today, we ride. We’re going to ride some horses. Think I’m going to play polo again, which is going to put me out of action for about six weeks.
‘It’s so hard to do, number one, my back and my neck from swinging that hammer around… or mallet, I think it’s called if you’re in the know. It hurts a lot, it’s very tough to do.’
Earlier this month, Payne appeared to be in high spirits as he attended Horan’s Argentinian concert with Ms Cassidy on October 2.
He could be seen singing and dancing and wrapping his arms around his girlfriend’s shoulder and tenderly kissing her on the head.
Payne had jetted off to South America where Niall was on tour as he told fans he ‘would like to square up a couple of things’ with his former bandmate.
Payne announced he and Ms Cassidy were flying to Argentina ‘One, because we want to. Two, because we want to. And three, because Niall Horan’s playing down there and I think we might just go and say ‘hello’.’
He admitted: ‘It’s been a while since me and Niall have spoken. We’ve got a lot to talk about and I would like to square up a couple things with the boy. No bad vibes or nothing like that but we just need to talk.’
He took to Snapchat stories and captioned one snap with Niall: ‘Reunited.’
During the concert, Payne also shared several videos with his followers as he partied in a box with Ms Cassidy.
He excitedly captioned one picture with: ‘We’re here (smiley face emoji)’.
The former One Direction star also showed his support for his pal as he shared several videos and snaps of him performing on stage to thousands of fans.
He captioned them with: ‘So happy I got to see Niall in concert (love heart emoji).’
Later, after Niall took to the stage, the singer jammed out to the musician’s solo performance of One Direction’s 2014 hit Stockholm Syndrome.
Payne’s sudden death comes after he was accused of obsessively contacting his ex-fiancée Ms Henry – as the Texan model launched legal proceedings against him.
Lawyers for the star told MailOnline on Monday: ‘Maya Henry issued a cease and desist last week to Liam Payne following the emergence of new and concerning information.’
Following confirmation of his death, a source close to Ms Henry said: ‘Right now she is obviously in shock.’
Just last week, Ms Henry – the daughter of multi-millionaire personal-injury lawyer Thomas J. Henry – claimed he had gone to extraordinary lengths in an attempt to contact her in a video to her TikTok followers.
‘Ever since we broke up he messages me, will blow up my phone, not only from his phone, it’s always from different phone numbers too, so I never know where it’s gonna come from,’ she said.
Police in the hotel reception area of the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires after Liam Payne fell
A firefighter ambulance departs the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires with Payne’s body
Liam Payne performs at Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney on October 13, 2018
Former One Direction member Liam Payne is pictured in Paris in March this year
Forensic teams are combing the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires where Payne fell to his death
‘He’ll create new iCloud accounts to message me – it’s always a new damn iCloud account. Every time I see one pop up on my phone I’m like, ‘here we f***ing go again.
‘Also, he will email me… not only me, but he’ll blow up my mom’s phone. Is this normal behavior to you?’
Last week the model also accused Payne of playing on the loyalty of die-hard One Direction fans across social media to pillory her.
Payne made his first public appearance with Ms Henry in 2019 before their stop-start three-year relationship came to an end in 2022, almost a year after the former couple called off their engagement.
Liam Payne arrives for a film premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in November 2010
(From left) Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles and Niall Horan of One Direction in 2015
Payne rose to stardom aged 16 after forming boy band One Direction on The X Factor in 2010 alongside Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Harry Styles.
His shock death has sparked an outpouring of grief, with shocked fans gathering outside after police cordoned off the area.
They were seen lighting candles and adorning the side of the road with flowers in an impromptu vigil as they paid tribute to the beloved music star.
Police in Argentina had received a call from a worker at the hotel urgently requesting help with an intoxicated guest, according to audio related to the case obtained from the Buenos Aires security ministry.
The worker said: ‘When he is conscious he is destroying the entire room and we need you to send someone.’
Emergency medical services director Alberto Crescenti said Payne had suffered ‘very serious injuries after falling from a third floor into an internal courtyard’.
‘We verified his identity using the passport he had,’ he added.
(From left) Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan (seated) Liam Payne and Harry Styles in 2010
Cheryl Cole and Liam Payne at the Cannes Film Festival at Hotel Martinez on May 12, 2016
Payne and Girls Aloud singer Cheryl share a son Bear, born in 2017. He is pictured as a newborn
Mr Crescenti told Argentine newspaper Clarin that ‘the team saw that he apparently had a fracture at the base of the skull’.
His body was transported to a local morgue where a post-mortem examination will be carried out.
Mr Crescenti said Payne had fallen around 45ft (14 metres) and suffered ‘severe injuries which were incompatible with life’.
He said: ‘The alarm was raised at 5.04pm local time saying a person was lying in an internal patio at Casa Sur. At 5.11pm an ambulance arrived and the man was certified dead.
‘Afterwards we found out he had been a famous singer. Unfortunately the injuries he had suffered as a result of the fall proved to be fatal. There was no possibility of resuscitating him.’
Unverified pictures have since emerged online claiming to be Payne’s hotel room completely trashed with one image showing a smashed television screen.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London confirmed it is in contact with authorities in Argentina ‘regarding reports of the death of a British man’.
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