To fans around the world, he was a global pop sensation: a former One Direction star with millions of admirers, a beloved son and father, and a man whose fortune was estimated at £22 million — seemingly living a life others could only dream of.
But behind the fame and success, Liam Payne’s final days were marked by a harrowing descent into drug and alcohol addiction, as he reportedly spent time with sex workers in an impersonal hotel room while consuming crack cocaine and whisky.
Although Liam Payne’s death has been the subject of widespread coverage, the most devastating details surrounding his last hours have, until now, remained largely unseen.
The Mail on Sunday today reveals information drawn from an extensive collection of around 3,000 investigative files, including documents, photographs, sworn testimony and official reports compiled after the singer died in Buenos Aires on October 16, 2024.
Among the most disturbing pieces of evidence is a CCTV still said to show Payne looking frail and vacant as he moved unsteadily through the corridors of the CasaSur Hotel, just an hour before he fell from the balcony of Room 310.
The material also reveals the anguish of his family. In a sworn statement to prosecutors, his father, Geoff Payne, described how his son seemed to disappear when overwhelmed by his struggles, saying Liam was “not in control” of his actions and that, in those moments, “He was not Liam.”
While certain details remain too sensitive and deeply personal to publish, the evidence offers the starkest and most heartbreaking account yet of a star who appeared to have lost touch with reality in the hours before his death.
Liam Payne is pictured appearing gaunt and hollow-eyed as he walks unsteadily through the CasaSur Hotel corridors about an hour before falling from the balcony of Room 310
Prostitutes Aldana Serrano and Lucila Goitea in the hotel lobby. The file is filled with new images showing the escorts imploring hotel staff to help them, after they argued with Liam over their payment
The MoS can reveal the documents show Liam:
- Begged one prostitute to bring him ‘five grams’ of cocaine ‘so I can make crack’.
- Was addicted to ‘sexting’ and sent a prostitute a graphic naked photo on the morning of his death.
- Told his best friend he was ‘afraid’ he might have accidentally sent a nude photo to a minor.
- Became so volatile hotel staff warned each other to be careful how they handled him to ‘stop him from continuing to be aggressive’. One waitress was told to take security with her when she took five bottles of whisky to his room.
- Racked up a $550 booze bill on his last day – despite a psychiatrist’s letter warning him not to mix alcohol with the prescription drugs he was taking.
- Swung around a pole in the street at 3am as he waited for drugs to be delivered – leading investigators to conclude he may have had the upper body strength to believe he could safely climb down from his hotel room balcony (more on which later).
To fully understand how quickly Liam turned from sober friend and father – he ‘adored’ his nine-year-old son Bear (with singer Cheryl Cole) – into a man one witness described as ‘possessed’, you have to start at the beginning of the case file.
Liam was in Argentina to renew his US visa and to watch his former One Direction bandmate Niall Horan in concert.
He spent two weeks on holiday with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy, but when she left him alone to return to their home in Wellington, Florida, Liam spiralled. He was asked to leave one hotel for ‘acting belligerent’ and checked into the CasaSur on the afternoon of October 14.
His father Geoff later told prosecutors that Liam could keep his addictions under control as long as he always had someone with him to prevent him going off the rails.
Geoff said his son became ‘another person’ on drugs. His family had last seen him on August 29 when the singer was filming a Netflix show in Manchester and he appeared ‘well, stable, clean of any drugs or alcohol’.
That meant that, when police initially labelled his death as a ‘possible suicide’, Geoff was insistent this could not be the case.
‘I have no doubt that Liam wanted to live,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t cross my mind that it was possible that he wanted to hurt himself.’
Yet staff at the CasaSur became aware that something was badly wrong within hours of Liam checking in that day.
Liam chatting with the two prostitutes in the hotel
Liam is seen swinging around a pole in the street at 3am as he waited for drugs to be delivered – leading investigators to conclude he may have had the upper-body strength to believe he could safely climb down from his hotel room balcony
Liam is seen with the two call girls in the hallway of the hotel as he takes them to his room
The hotel room where Payne had been staying in Buenos Aires. The TV was left with a broken screen
Liam’s black Yankees cap was also found near his body. He’d smashed through a patio umbrella and died instantly from massive internal injuries
He started calling the front desk asking for drugs and was ordering bottle after bottle of Johnnie Walker Black label whisky from room service.
The files contain messages from a ‘Reception’ group WhatsApp chat on October 14, where hotel manager Gilda Martin wrote: ‘This person is going to be very intense throughout his stay.
‘It’s important that we tell him “no”, always kindly and with excuses. This is to stop him from continuing to be aggressive. Or at least not so much.’
Reception replied: ‘Will do whatever we can as long as he doesn’t get violent.’
Reception messaged a room service waitress called Adri, requesting that she deliver five bottles of whisky to Room 310, but warned: ‘Take security with you.’
Liam was also begging staff for drugs. Hotel employee Ezequiel Pereyra and waiter Braian Paiz have been charged with bringing cocaine to him during his two-day bender. Both have pleaded not guilty to all charges and are negotiating plea deals with prosecutors to avoid jail.
By 7am on October 16, the day he died, Liam messaged his best friend Roger Nores saying: ‘Buddy, I think I’m going to f*** a prostitute.’
Roger admitted he knew his friend had addiction issues with drugs and alcohol – and sexting.
In his later statement to police, Roger referred to allegations made by an ex-girlfriend of Liam’s, Maya Henry, who released a book a month before Liam’s death accusing the singer of sending sexually explicit texts to women over the internet, some of whom, Maya alleged, were under-age. Roger said: ‘I didn’t ask him many questions. He did tell me that he was afraid to think that he might have sent a nude photograph to a minor without realising it, but he did not accept any kind of responsibility.
‘In fact, the only thing he did was direct his anger towards his [ex]-girlfriend who did not support him very much.
‘I know that he was addicted to sexting. I never saw him doing it but he had told me about it. His major problem was that, as well as his addiction to drugs and alcohol.’
At 10.30am, the case files show Liam messaged prostitute Aldana Serrano on WhatsApp after finding her profile on an Argentine escort site. Liam showed up on her phone as ‘LP’.
LP said: ‘We should get cocaine’, and sent a graphic nude picture of himself.
She replied: ‘When it arrives.’ Aldana later told investigators her English was poor and she meant to say, ‘When I arrive’.
LP then told her: ‘Can you get? We need 5 grams so I can make crack.’
Aldana offered to bring her friend Lucila Goitea and Liam said he would pay the girls $5,000 to spend the day with him.
This was followed by another picture of himself lying in his hotel bed. The two women were shocked when they eventually arrived at Liam’s room.
While pictures have previously emerged of a smashed TV set, Room 310 was ‘carnage’.
Packets of baking soda found in the hotel room suggest he melted the cocaine down into rocks which he smoked
A bottle of Johnnie Walker Double Black whisky was also found in his room
Packets of pills were lined up along the back of the sofa. They included Klonopin (a powerful prescription sedative), the sleep aid melatonin and an over-the-counter ‘energising’ drug used to increase sexual performance
Liam with prostitute Aldana Serrano in the lobby of the hotel. Liam had said he would pay the call girls $5,000 to spend the day with him
A hotel worker delivers scotch and champagne to Liam’s room
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Sheets were pulled off the bed, there were streaks of blood on the bathroom sink, and drug paraphernalia littered the room, including burned Coca-Cola can lids, a blackened spoon and half-burned candles. Police and prosecutors believe Liam heated the powdered cocaine into a liquid ‘crack’ form of the drug which he snorted or injected.
Packets of baking soda suggest he also melted the cocaine down into rocks which he smoked.
There were ‘baggies’ of white powder and a crumpled $100 bill.
Packets of pills were lined up along the back of the sofa. They included Klonopin (a powerful prescription sedative), the sleep aid melatonin and an over-the-counter ‘energising’ drug used to increase sexual performance.
When the escorts arrived, Liam ordered more whisky and champagne, and room service receipts show he spent $550 on booze.
The women drank champagne and both had sex with him.
Then things turned sour.
They demanded their $5,000 payment in cash but he did not have enough cash to pay them and offered to wire transfer the money from his bank.
A furious row ensued. Liam offered his gold Rolex as payment and when they refused he smashed it against the wall.
The file is filled with new images showing the escorts in the hotel lobby, arguing with Liam and then imploring hotel staff to help them.
CCTV footage shows Liam pacing back and forth. He goes up and down to his room multiple times to take more drugs.
The women left around 3.30pm and Liam’s friend Roger arrived at 4pm, the footage shows.
The men talked, but Roger said his friend did not seem impaired and so he left again. Forty minutes later, Liam was dead.
Roger was originally charged with ‘abandoning’ Liam, but all charges were dropped and he was completely exonerated.
Certainly, Liam became increasingly erratic after his friend left.
At one point he lay on a sofa in the lobby and smashed his computer on the ground screaming ‘F*** this s***!’
He told a fellow guest: ‘I was in a boy band that’s why I’m so f*****d up.’ He then began convulsing in the lobby. A series of pictures show him passed out, and being carried back to his room by hotel staff shortly before 5pm.
Then, at 5.07pm, staff heard a loud ‘bang’.
Liam’s crumpled body was on the ground in the hotel courtyard. He’d smashed through a patio umbrella and died instantly from massive internal injuries, his baseball cap was a few feet away.
Liam in the lobby on the day of his death. The police files contain messages from a ‘Reception’ group WhatsApp chat on October 14, where hotel manager Gilda Martin wrote: ‘This person is going to be very intense throughout his stay’
Liam in the hallway of the hotel. CCTV footage shows him pacing back and forth. He goes up and down to his room multiple times to take more drugs
Liam’s crossbody bag was found at the scene of his death, after he plunged from the balcony
Receipts from the hotel show him purchasing vast quantities of expensive alcohol
Since his death, fans have come up with wild conspiracy theories. Some have suggested there was someone else in Room 310 with the star. But the case file says no evidence was ever found that anyone entered the room after he was carried back there.
And the file suggests an intriguing new theory about his death.
One of the new images shows Liam, dressed in a green top and grey jeans, swinging around a pole outside the hotel at 3.21am in the early hours of the morning before his death.
He was waiting for Ezequiel Pereyra to allegedly deliver drugs.
A source close to the investigation last week said police consider the pole picture ‘highly significant’ because it showed Liam’s upper body strength. This suggests that, rather than being suicidal, he may have been trying to climb out of his hotel room, confident he could hold his weight, before he lost his grip and died.
Pictures taken at the scene show distinctive palm prints on the glass around the balcony, which fingerprint analysis confirmed were Liam’s. The marks show his fingers apparently slid on the glass. It is also known that, before he fell, Liam threw a leather duffel bag from his third-floor balcony onto the balcony of the second-floor room below his.
During his One Direction days, the singer was known to have climbed out of hotel windows to ‘escape’ fans.
The source said: ‘Liam was a fit young man. Who you see the image of him swinging around the pole, with his body at a 90-degree angle to the ground, you see how strong he is.
‘His bodyguard told us he escaped out of hotel windows before. The forensic examination of the palm prints show Liam may have climbed over the railing and attempted to use his strength to drop onto the second-floor balcony.
‘Maybe he thought he could swing down to the second floor and then safely to the ground? The trouble is he was so impaired by drugs and alcohol his fingers slipped on the glass and he fell.
‘The pole picture is huge. Liam threw a bag over the balcony and then attempted to get down.
‘People have been asking for two years what happened? This is what we believe happened.’
The hotel room is seen covered in evidence markers following Liam’s death. Drug paraphernalia littered the room, including burned Coca-Cola can lids, a blackened spoon and half-burned candles
There were ‘baggies’ of white powder found in Liam’s hotel room, too
Waiter Braian Paiz seen with Liam in the lobby of the hotel. He and hotel employee Ezequiel Pereyra have been charged with bringing cocaine to Liam during the singer’s two-day bender
In his statement, Liam’s dad Geoff poignantly said his son was an artist who liked to sketch, and would always carry a set of pencils around with him
Shocking pictures in the file show Liam’s crumpled body in the courtyard. They reveal he was carrying a ‘man bag’ across his body that contained his passport, money, a bottle of Johnnie Walker, his phone and a set of colouring pencils. In his statement, Liam’s dad Geoff poignantly said his son was an artist who liked to sketch, and would always carry a set of pencils around with him.
Toxicology reports showed Liam had high levels of cocaine in his blood and urine and traces of the drug in his nose and stomach.
His alcohol level was more than four times the drink-drive limit. There were prescription sedatives and anti-depressants in his blood.
A letter from his US psychiatrist, Dr Rachel Rohaidy, addressed to Liam, had warned him about mixing prescription drugs with alcohol.
She said he needed ‘a higher level of care’ than she could offer.
Dr Rohaidy wrote: ‘I will no longer be able to render psychiatric care to you. You should avoid heavy drinking while on medication.
‘You must take your medications exactly as prescribed. This means taking the medication orally, as instructed, and not by any other means, such as snorting.’
The investigation into Liam’s death continues in Argentina but investigators say they believe it will be wrapped up ‘soon’ once the plea deals are arranged with the two men charged with allegedly supplying him with cocaine.
One mystery remains: what happened to the gold Rolex that Liam is said to have smashed in a temper?
Police had search warrants for the prostitutes’ houses but came up empty-handed.
A source last week told the MoS police are working on the theory that someone who went into his room after his death may have removed it.
For now, the 3,000-page enquiry into Liam’s death remains the closest we are likely to come to discovering exactly what happened on the fateful day that Liam Payne’s demons overcame him – and which led to a global superstar dying alone, thousands of miles from home.
Additional reporting by Eliana Silver
