The latest report into the death of former One Direction member Liam Payne leaves more questions than answers following his fatal fall from the balcony of his hotel room on October 16. He was 31.
According to surveillance video footage from the hotel, witnesses, a 911 call and the police, the singer may not have been trying to end his life, but rather could have been using the balcony as a means to escape his Buenos Aires CasaSur Palermo Hotel, TMZ reported.
In one video from the hotel, minutes before his death, the singer is being carried out of the lobby by three men. In a second video, those same men use their key to get the singer inside his room while he struggled to get free.
The outlet also learned that Payne’s hat was located close to where his body was found in the hotel courtyard and strapped to his shoulder was a bag, leading some to speculate that he was trying to leave via the balcony.
#LiamPayne was trying to escape from his hotel when he fell to his death, and the hotel knew he was threatening to use the balcony as the means to escape, but left him by himself. pic.twitter.com/VLCl9FOHnc
— TMZ (@TMZ) November 25, 2024
After his death, a brown leather bag was found on a second floor balcony leading the outlet to suggest that Payne may have only been attempting to get from the third floor balcony to the second when something went wrong. A note inside the bag read “for Liam,” and the bag also contained various pills and a bottle of alcohol.
Multiple 911 calls made by the hotel staff minutes before the singer’s shocking fatal fall appear to support the idea.
The Associated Press reported that the hotel manager told the 911 operator about “a guest who is overwhelmed with drugs and alcohol. … He’s destroying the entire room and, well, we need you to send someone, please.”
A BBC transcript stated that the staff said the person had been “trashing the entire room” before his death. In a second call, a member of the hotel staff said they worried the guest’s “life may be in danger” because he was “in a room with a balcony. We’re a little afraid that he …” the BBC reported.
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The 911 operator assured the manager that emergency crews were on the way, per the outlet.
The cause of death is currently listed as “multiple trauma” and “internal and external bleeding,” the Associated Press reported.
Apparently using balconies to escape places was not unheard of for the singer. Sources with knowledge told TMZ that in mid-September Payne escaped from a Florida rental house using the balcony and a garden hose after his bodyguard had forced him inside the house for fear he would go on drug binge.
Three people have been arrested and face charges of “abandonment of a person followed by death and the supply of narcotics” in connection to Payne’s death, Sky News reported.
Payne’s partial autopsy reportedly showed that the singer had “multiple substances in his system” including something called “pink cocaine” when he fell three stories from the hotel, sources told ABC News. The toxicology report also reportedly found crack, cocaine, and benzodiazepine. Paraphernalia used to ingest drugs were also found, the sources said.