A former member of boyband One Direction, Liam Payne, passed away on October 16, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the age of 31.
The singer-songwriter died on Wednesday night. Footage was released on TMZ of Payne falling out of a third floor hotel balcony, and an autopsy revealed internal and external hemorrhage and polytrauma.
In a report from Hindustan Times Payne was in Argentina for former bandmate Niall Horan’s tour, “The Show: Live on Tour.” Payne attended the October 2 show in Buenos Aires at the Movistar Arena. Originally, Payne was supposed to leave Argentina with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy on October 5, but due to visa complications stayed in the country.
In information made public by publications including the BBC and E! Online, Payne’s preliminary toxicology report had “multiple drugs including crack cocaine, methamphetamine and pink cocaine.” Pink cocaine is a drug cocktail containing methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA.
Paula Varela, an Argentinian journalist, was able to get an inside scoop on what was really going on in Payne’s hotel room and the moment of his death. On an appearance on the Buenos Aires based entertainment news show, Socios del Espectáculo, Varela was able to talk to a worker at the hotel that was “close” to Payne.
From this, Varela received photos of the inside of Payne’s hotel room. This revealed all the substances that Payne was allegedly using, and also how he was living. In these pictures there was a smashed up T.V and multiple wax and aluminum foil mixtures all around the room, which could resemble the substances found in the toxicology report.
Payne was planning on proposing to his long term girlfriend, Kate Cassidy. On October 23, Cassidy shared a post on Instagram with a statement about Payne’s death and mentioned the fact that they were planning to get married in a year or so. In the post Cassidy shared a note that Payne wrote to her a few weeks before his death, which said, ¨Me and Kate to marry within a year/engaged & together forever 444.¨
On November 7, Paynes body was transported on a plane from Argentina to England. Payne’s funeral will take place in his home city of Wolverhampton, England. Not much is known on the details of his funeral but it is known that fans are not allowed. People across social media like @complicatedlittlefreak28 on TikTok are urging fans and paparazzi to leave Payne’s family and friends alone and let them mourn in peace. There have also been multiple false funeral photos circulating around the internet claiming to be of Payne’s funeral but are in fact not.
This is similar to former YouTube content creators, The Dolan Twins, father’s funeral. Their father had passed away in 2019 and fans were planning on asking the twins to take photos with them afterwards. Because of the constant harassment, the twins did not go to their dad’s funeral. A few years later, The Dolan Twins would quit social media and in interviews are quoted as saying this was one of the reasons why.
Just before Payne’s death he had finished filming a Netflix show called ¨Building the Band,¨ which is now on hold. In March of this year, he dropped a single called “Teardrops” that debuted at 85 on the UK singles chart. Payne was also going to be featured on Sam Pounds’ song “Do No Wrong,” but he has delayed the original release date (November 1) out of respect for Payne’s death.
