Liam Payne’s girlfriend breaks her silence after death of her ‘angel’ One Direction star boyfriend

Liam Payne’s girlfriend has broken her silence after the tragic death of her ‘angel’ boyfriend earlier this week.

Kate Cassidy has taken to Instagram to express her heartbreak after the singer plunged 45ft to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina on Wednesday, as she opened up to her followers ‘I have been at a complete loss’, ‘nothing feels real’.

The 25-year-old wrote that she will love her ‘angel’ ‘for the rest of her life’, adding in the tribute ‘444’ which is considered an angel number in numerology.

The couple had originally flew to Buenos Aires to watch his former bandmate Niall Horan’s concert on October 4, but he remained in the country after his girlfriend flew home on October 14.

It read: ‘Thank you for all of the kind words and love that has been sent my way. I have been at a complete loss. Nothing about the past few days have felt real. I ask and pray that you’ll give me the grace and space to navigate this in private.

‘Liam, my angel. You are everything. I want you to know I loved you unconditionally and completely. I will continue to love you for the rest of my life. I love you Liam.’

Kate Cassidy (right) and the singer originally flew to Buenos Aires to watch his former bandmate Niall Horan ‘s concert on October 4

Kate and Liam first started dating in October 2022, and made their red carpet debut at the Fashion Awards later that year

Kate and Liam first started dating in October 2022, and made their red carpet debut at the Fashion Awards later that year.

However, in May 2023, the couple sparked split rumours, with a source telling US Weekly: ‘Liam and Kate have broken up.’

The pair then put an end to split rumours by enjoying a date in London in June 2023, and later that year she supported him when he was rushed to hospital with a ‘serious kidney infection’.

The former One Direction star fell from the third floor of the Casa Sur Palmero hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Wednesday.

Just days before his death, Kate shared a touching post, dedicated to the singer.

The blonde beauty took a snap of the popstar riding horseback in the countryside. Liam could be seen wearing a casual grey T-shirt as he sat on the horse and spoke to someone who appeared to be helping him.

Over the picture, Kate wrote: ‘I am very grateful for the simple things in life’.

Before the singer’s death, he had stared a final Snapchat post showed him happily posing with Kate as they looked into a mirror. A picture originally taken last August.

Just days before the shocking death, Kate shared a touching post, dedicated to the star where they went horseriding

The pair then put an end to split rumours by enjoying a date in London in June 2023, and later that year she supported him when he was rushed to hospital with a ‘serious kidney infection’

Liam Payne and Kate Cassidy watching the action on Centre Court Wimbledon Tennis Championships, Day 10, The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London, UK – 12 Jul 2023

She had recently recounted on TikTok how the pair met in California and how their meeting almost never happened as she had desperately tried to get off work that evening.

She said: ‘I worked at this bar/lounge place called Ritual. Me and all my friends worked there, it was only my second week at work and I didn’t want to work every weekend.

‘They put me on schedule for week two and I really wanted to get off. I tried everything in my power to get off and nothing worked out.

‘On the way to work my manager texted me and was like ‘Liam Payne from One Direction is here, you’re going to be taking care of him tonight.’ ‘

Kate admitted she was ‘freaking out’ when she had to approach Liam’s table and ended up chickening out at first.

She said: ‘When I first approached him, I got nervous and stopped and turned around. I guess we made awkward eye contact for a second.

‘We talk about it because he said to [his friend] Conor, ‘Oh my God, did you see that girl walking over here? I’m not leaving this bar until I get her number.’

‘Then two minutes later I come back around. He was like, ‘is there anyway I can get a table inside?’ He’s literally sitting inside drinking Red Bulls and I didn’t think anything of it, I just thought he was overly friendly, I didn’t think he was flirting with me.’

In a TikTok video uploaded on September 20, Kate recounted how she and Liam met and how their relationship almost never happened at all

In her video, Kate told her followers how their meeting almost never happened as she had desperately tried to get off work that evening

Kate told how everytime she approached his table, Liam offered her to sit down with him and soon asked for her number.

She said: ‘Everytime I came to the table to check up on him, he’d be like sit down! I have family in London and I was like, ‘Oh I’m going to London to see my cousin’ and he was like, ‘I’d love to be your tour guide when you come.’ I was like, OK I’m picking up the sense that you’re flirting with me.

‘He asked for my number and I didn’t realise you had to put the +1 because I’m from America. I just my area code, the 201 and he tried texting me and it kept going green, not delivered.

‘He thought I’d put the wrong number in as in like, not interested. I was freaking out all night and then he realised I forgot to put the +1 and it went through.’

They suffered another mishap later that evening as Kate’s phone died when she went to bed and Liam thought she had blocked his number.

She recalled: ‘That night, I actually didn’t plug my phone in before bed so when I woke up in the morning it was dead. Once he finally got the number to go through, he thought I blocked him because it didn’t say delivered.

‘The next morning I texted him and was like so sorry for getting back to you so late, what time is your flight back to England? He was like, before I leave for the airport I can come see you for lunch.

‘We went for lunch which went really well and then went bowling and then went on a ghost tour, we basically had one of our first dates in a graveyard.

‘He extended his flight and then extended it again the next day so he ended up in Charleston for three days. That’s the story of how we met.

‘Literally, everything happens for a meeting. Don’t get off work because you want to go to a party because you never know, you could end up meeting your future husband.’

Liam Payne looks at his laptop in the Casa Sur Hotel lobby in Buenos Aires on Wednesday at 4.26pm local time (8.26pm UK time). The alarm was raised at 5.04pm following his fall

Liam Payne in the Casa Sur Hotel lobby in Buenos Aires just minutes before his death

A table surface covered with tin foil, white powder, a lighter and scorch marks on the wooden surface in Payne’s room

In the hours before his death Liam received an email that caused him to fly into a rage and smash his laptop while in the hotel lobby.

The tragic One Direction star opened the email and shouted ‘f*** this s**t mate!’ and broke his laptop, a young woman told MailOnline.

The singer was going through an increasingly difficult period, after it was revealed that just two weeks ago, he was dropped by his record label Universal Music, putting an end to his plans for a second solo album.

And on Monday, his ex-finance Maya James, who claimed the star had ‘predicted he would die early’, started legal proceedings against Payne, accusing him of obsessively contacting her and ‘weaponising’ his fans against her.

It came after the 23-year-old Texan model had already served the singer cease and desist papers last week after accusing him of repeatedly contacting her and her family.

Rebecca, not her real name, who was staying at the Casa Sur hotel in Palermo with Liam and told MailOnline that his bizarre behaviour at the hotel and its horrific aftermath had left her ‘shaken’.

The 28-year-old had a surprise 30-minute long encounter with Payne took place in the foyer of the hotel, where she was staying for a wedding. Payne had been due to check out on Wednesday morning, but still had not done so by late afternoon, she claimed.

Rebecca took her photos from 4.26pm local time (8.26pm UK time) – which is also when Payne made the ‘boy band’ comment. Just 36 minutes later, hotel staff raised the alarm at 5.04pm following Payne’s fall. An ambulance arrived at 5.11pm and Payne was then certified dead.

A drone view shows the balcony on the Casa Sur Hotel from where Payne fell to his death

She told MailOnline in an exclusive interview: ‘One of my friends was due to get his suite, so the hotel staff were a little on edge because he still hadn’t checked out at 4.30pm, but also because of his behaviour.

‘I came into the hotel, and he was waiting by the elevator, and it was so clear he wanted someone to recognise him, there was something a bit desperate about him.

‘I was with my friends and we did know who he was, but none of us were that bothered.

‘When the lift came he suddenly said to us without any prompting: ‘Yes, I’m Liam!’ really drawing it out, and then said ‘All right come on you lot, get in the elevator with me, I love a cuddle’.

‘I decided against it and waited for the next one, but some of the other girls got in with him and half way up, he started saying ‘Oh, you’re Americans, I live in West Palm Beach.

‘I know Americans. You guys are f***ing crazy! You guys are f***ing dangerous!

‘And then he grabs a girl who I think was with him and starts fake choking her, only lightly, but the others thought it was really disturbing.’

Rebecca said she returned to the lobby ten minutes later and shortly afterwards, Payne arrived back, dangling his open laptop nonchalantly from one corner.

He then began reading emails after flopping onto a sofa, wearing a white vest, cargo pants and trainers.

One of Liam Payne’s final selfies in Buenos Aires was captioned: ‘Lovely day in Argentina’

Payne said he was ‘happy to have some time away’ less than an hour before he fell to his death

Payne was seen contemplating a Forest Gump Halloween costume in a social media post

‘I have a blind relative and I realised he had the laptop on its accessibility setting, for some reason, so that each time he moved the mouse, hovering over something the machine spoke out loud to say where the cursor was,’ said Rebecca.

‘I assumed he was doing that for the attention too. Then he opened his emails and saw one which obviously upset him. Suddenly he took the computer, shouted ‘f**k this s**t mate!’ and started bashing the computer on the ground.

Everyone, especially the staff was really shocked. It’s a high-end hotel and his behaviour was so out of place – people were just chilling.

‘I went over, asked ‘are you OK?’ But he just kind of grunted. Then he said ‘I used to be in a boyband. That’s why I’m so f**ked up.’

‘I couldn’t believe he’d just come out and said something like that. There was a lot more swearing and he took the laptop over and went to get back in the lift.

‘After he’d gone, the British guy from his entourage, who I think was called Roger, came over and apologised on his behalf, saying ‘I’m sorry, he just gets so high sometimes’.

‘I did wonder what these people with him were doing to help him, but maybe they had tried and failed. The hotel staff were freaking out and watching him really nervously. I could see one of them was on the phone to what I assumed was security or the police.

Payne plunged from a third floor balcony of the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires (file photo)

Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy posted a picture of the pair on her Instagram from last August

 A fan pays tribute to  Liam Payne in front of the hotel where he died in Buenos Aires yesterday

‘I’ve never taken cocaine, but he was behaving exactly as I’d imagine someone would on the drug – he wasn’t focusing, and his pupils were dilated, and he was behaving in aggressive way – though not to anyone in particular.’

Rebecca couldn’t work out why Payne was hanging around the lobby but wondered afterwards whether he was planning to meet someone to resupply his drugs.

Then after a few minutes, he returned to the lobby, she recalled.

Rebecca said: ‘He walked in again and just tripped and fell flat on his face, sprawling across the floor. The staff came to help him and get him back in the elevator, and that’s when I took the last photo.

‘You can just see the arm of the English guy who was with him, holding the lift door open before taking them up to the third floor again.

‘It wasn’t long after that when the police arrived and initially we thought they were just going to kick him out, but then when the staff started running around like crazy, we suddenly realised the seriousness of what had happened.

‘Some of my friends had seen him falling, it was awful, and at first they thought he might have just injured himself, but then we saw the body out in the courtyard, and later they brought him out on a stretcher, it was all so horrible.’

Police in the hotel reception area of the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires after Liam Payne fell

Emergency services remove Liam Payne’s body from the Casa Sur Hotel on Wednesday

He died of multiple traumas and ‘internal and external haemorrhage’, a post-mortem examination report said.

Argentina’s National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office No 16 said it was investigating the incident as an ‘inconclusive death’ following the report.

Payne’s family said they were ‘heartbroken’, adding: ‘Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul.’

A joint statement from his One Direction bandmates said they were ‘completely devastated’ and will miss the singer ‘terribly’, adding the ‘memories we shared with him will be treasured forever’.

In a separate statement, Styles said the years he spent with Payne ‘will forever remain among the most cherished years of my life.’

‘I will miss him always, my lovely friend,’ three-time Grammy winner Styles said in a statement on Instagram.

Payne’s ‘greatest joy was making other people happy, and it was an honour to be alongside him as he did it’, Styles wrote.

‘Liam lived wide open, with his heart on his sleeve, he had an energy for life that was infectious,’ he said. ‘He was warm, supportive, and incredibly loving. The years we spent together will forever remain among the most cherished years of my life.’

Styles said his ‘heart breaks’ for Payne’s family and his seven-year-old son Bear, who he shared with his former partner, Girls Aloud singer Cheryl.

Fellow One Direction star Louis Tomlinson vowed to be an uncle to Payne’s son in a separate Instagram statement.

‘I want you to know that if Bear ever needs me I will be the uncle he needs in his life and tell him stories of how amazing his dad was,’ the 32-year-old said.

Tomlinson said Payne was ‘the most vital part of One Direction’, describing his ‘perfect pitch, his stage presence, (and) his gift for writing’.

‘I’m so grateful that we got even closer since the band, speaking on the phone for hours, reminiscing about all the thousands of amazing memories we had together is a luxury I thought I’d have with you for life,’ he said.

‘I would have loved to share the stage with you again but it wasn’t to be.’

‘I will cherish all the memories I have with you in my heart forever, there is no words that justify or explain how I feel right now other than beyond devastated,’ the 31-year-old added.

Fans light candles as they pay tribute to Liam Payne at the Obelisco in Buenos Aires last night

A forensic worker inside the Casa Sur Hotel where Payne died in Buenos Aires on Wednesday

Fans of Liam Payne lit candles next to the hotel where he died in Buenos Aires on Wednesday

Among those paying tribute was Camila Cabello, who rose to fame on the US version of The X Factor in 2012 after forming the girl group Fifth Harmony.

‘Thank you Liam for all the joy you brought my friends and I’ she wrote on Instagram. ‘It really made an impression on me as a young girl to meet a member of a group I loved and have him be so kind.

‘It’s a tragedy to have him gone way too soon.’

After Payne’s death, five witnesses were questioned in order to reconstruct what happened, the prosecutor’s office said.

Reports said staff at the hotel made two calls to emergency services with audio revealing a staff member had asked for assistance for a guest who was ‘intoxicated by drugs and alcohol’.

Police in the capital said the music star’s hotel room had been ‘in complete disarray’ with ‘various items broken’ – adding that a whiskey bottle, lighter and mobile phone had been retrieved from the internal hotel courtyard where Payne’s body was found.

One Direction fans mourned his death at a vigil outside the Argentine hotel where they lit candles and laid flowers.

The band toured across the globe and had five chart-topping albums, as well as four number one singles in the UK chart with tracks including What Makes You Beautiful and Little Things.

Payne, who was born in Wolverhampton, released his debut solo album LP1 in December 2019, which included the songs Polaroid and Strip That Down featuring Quavo.