Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
Liam Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy had been on holiday with the singer in the days before his death.
The One Direction singer was found dead, aged 31, in a hotel courtyard in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at around 5pm local time on Wednesday (16 October) after he sustained “extremely serious injuries” from a fall from a balcony on the third floor.
Payne was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities will now perform an autopsy and investigate the cause of death.
Follow live updates and tributes following the death of Liam Payne here.
In the days before his death, his girlfriend of two years, 25-year-old Cassidy, had joined him on his trip to Argentina, and the pair had been documenting their trip together online.
Cassidy, who is a social media influencer, had been on the trip with Payne for two weeks before she decided to return home to her Florida home.
In a vlog posted on her TikTok account two days before Payne’s death, Cassidy said she was “so ready to leave” Buenos Aires after their five day trip had turned into a two week long holiday.
“I honestly loved South America but I hate staying in one place for too long,” she said. “We were supposed to stay for five days but it turned into two weeks and I was just like ‘I need to go home.’”
She remarked that the seat number she had been given on her flight home was “1D” – the shortened name for One Direction – and Cassidy told the camera, “I swear this happens every single time I fly”.
When she arrived back in Miami, she said she was “relieved” and “so happy” to be home, before recording herself ordering a bagel and going to bed.
Who is Kate Cassidy?
Cassidy, who was born in New Jersey, works as an influencer with more than 250,000 followers on Instagram and more than 300,000 on TikTok.
When their relationship began, Cassidy claimed in a TikTok video that she had “manifested” her relationship with the One Direction star when she was just 10 years old.
“I am the best manifester, and I’m going to show you why,” Cassidy began the clip, which was posted in November 2023.
She then showed that she had drawn an image of Payne onto a “popsicle stick” aged 10.
“And somehow 10 years later,” Cassidy said, before opening the door to her childhood bedroom and revealing the real-life Payne lounging on her bed.
The couple smile together at the end of the clip as she says: “Be careful what you wish for!”
“The power of manifesting, I guess,” she captioned the post, and used One Direction’s 2014 hit “Night Changes” as the backing music.
The beginning of Liam Payne and Kate Cassidy’s relationship
She began dating the One Direction singer in 2022, and the pair were pictured together for the first time wearing Halloween costumes, with the influencer dressing up as Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, while Payne wore a white tank top to transform into Anderson’s ex-husband Tommy Lee.
Two months later, in December 2022, they made their red carpet debut together at the British Fashion Awards in London.
Cassidy had also been Payne’s guest at the UK premiere of One Direction bandmate Louis Tomlinson’s documentary All Of Those Voices.
The couple had documented their various travels together, having visited Dubai, New York, Italy, Spain and France on several occasions.
Their Argentina holiday
In the days before Payne’s death, the pair had been sharing happy moments from their Argentina stay.
In a video shared on his Snapchat profile, Payne can be seen sitting at his hotel’s breakfast table, joking with Cassidy about leaving her hat on the table. “Lovely day in Argentina,” the video was captioned.
“It’s a lovely day here in Argentina,” he said in the video. “This is the breakfast table. Just enjoying coffee and breakfast even though it’s 1 pm.”
Cassidy had shared pictures of the pair horse riding together, captioning the post: “I am very grateful for the simple things in life.”
In another post, Payne posed with Cassidy for a selfie with the caption, “Quality time” and teased a Halloween costume idea with a photo of himself sitting on a chair. It was captioned: “Halloween costume idea: Forest Gump.”
Payne’s final Snapchat story was a photo of himself and Cassidy in swimsuits, one that Cassidy had posted on Instagram in August 2023 to mark his 30th birthday.
While officials are still investigating the exact circumstances surrounding Payne’s death, Buenos Aires police said in a statement he died after he fell from a hotel balcony on the third floor.
Earlier this month, Payne reportedly shared a Snapchat saying he was travelling to Argentina in part to see his former bandmate Niall Horan play a show there.
“It’s been a while since me and Niall have spoken,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about and I would like to square up a couple of things with the boy. No bad vibes or nothing like that but we just need to talk,” he said.