According to local officials, according to the Associated Press, Liam Payne fell from the third floor of a hotel room at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Buenos Aires police said in a statement that Liam Payne’s fall caused “extremely serious injuries”. Doctors confirmed he died on the spot.
Pablo Policicchio, a spokesman for the Buenos Aires City Security Department, told news outlets that the former One Direction member had fallen from the balcony of his room and said police were dispatched to the hotel after an emergency call, informing him of an “aggressive man who may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”
Responding officers heard the noise and found Payne’s body in the hotel yard later. According to the information, Liam Payne fell from a height of 13-14 meters and was “seriously injured leading to instant death”.
“We arrived in time to try to save his life, but there was nothing we could do,” Alberto Crescenti, the head of the state’s emergency health system, explained on Argentine television channel Todo Noticias. Crescenti added that authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding Payne’s death and an autopsy is underway.
It is unclear whether Liam’s fall from the balcony was intentional or accidental.
Meanwhile, witnesses told TMZ that the incident happened after 5 p.m. (local time) and that the pop star had acted erratically in the hotel lobby earlier. The former One Direction member reportedly smashed his laptop and had to be taken back to his room.
When he was alive, Liam Payne shared a 7-year-old son with his ex-girlfriend Cheryl Cole. The late star previously revealed that he hit the “bottom” during his time at One Direction due to drug and alcohol use.
“I was worried about how far my bottom was going to go. Where is my bottom? And you’ll never see it. I’m very good at hiding it. No one will see it,” Payne said on the podcast “Diary of a CEO” in June 2021.
Payne also shared how alcohol abuse has affected her mental health.
“There were a couple of pictures I took on the boat, and I was swollen,” Liam recalled, “I called it the face of drugs and alcohol. My face was 10 times bigger then than it is now.”
“I didn’t like myself very much, and then I changed.”
Liam Payne said that because he and his former teammates — Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik — became famous so quickly that they often had to stay in hotel rooms and use minibars. Payne said that while he’s grateful to be a part of the band, he doesn’t always have “the freedom to choose and the freedom to do everything.”
