Liam Payne, former member of the boy band One Direction, has died at the age of 31 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after falling from a third floor balcony of the Casa Sur Palmero Hotel yesterday (Wednesday, October 16, 2024).
The hotel manager called for emergency medical care about 10 minutes before Payne's death. During the call, he said, "Well, we have a guest overloaded with drugs and alcohol. And, well, when he is conscious, he is breaking the whole room. And, well, we need you to send us someone please." He went on to tell the operator, "We need you to send us someone urgently because, well, we don't know if the guest's life is at risk. He is in a room that has a balcony. And well, we're a bit afraid that he does something that could put his life at risk."
Payne is survived by his seven-year-old son Bear with Cheryl Cole, who was a judge on X Factor, the show on which he got his start at the age of 16 when Simon Cowell teamed him up with Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik to form a boy band.
Payne was in Argentina with his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, to attend his former bandmate Niall Horan's concert on October 4. They stayed in Argentina to enjoy some down time, but on October 14 Cassidy flew home to Florida, saying in a video on TikTok she'd originally only planned to spend five days there and "was so ready to leave. I was just like, I need to go home."
City ambulance spokesman Alberto Crescenti said: "The alarm was raised at 5:04 p.m. local time saying a person was lying in an internal patio at Casa Sur. At 5:11 p.m. 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."
An investigation into his death is currently underway and an autopsy will be performed. ~Alexandra Heilbron
That's really sad news. Especially for his young son and his family.
Drugs and alcohol = selfish. Is he sad he's not as "famous" as a couple of the other former band members? Either way, HE decided to take the drugs and mix with alcohol and now he left his kid without a father.
Another one bites the dust. They think that they can just swallow their scars with drugs, alcohol, and sex. Self-hatred is huge in the entertainment business. The underlying mental health issues are never solved with boatloads of money and fame and attention from people you don't even know. It all has the exact opposite effect. Payne was pretty messed up all through the 1D moment of fame, and when it crashed and burned, it sure looked like he did the same. RIP, tortured soul. I hope you get to a better place.