Liam Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy has broken her silence with an emotional message following his tragic death at age 31.
“Thank you for all of the kind words and love that has been sent my way. I have been at a complete loss,” she posted on her Instagram Story Friday. “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,” she continued. “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.”
Cassidy, a model and influencer who has more than 600,000 Instagram followers, went public with her relationship with the One Direction alum in 2022.
Last month she shared a video to TikTok, explaining the two met when she was working at a nightclub in Charleston, S.C., and was directed by her manager to make sure he was taken care of.
She said she told Payne she made frequent trips to the U.K. to visit family in London, and he offered to be her tour guide. They spent the next few days together and she said Payne pushed his trip to England back by three days.
She added that “everything happens for a reason, don’t try to get off work because you want to go to a party, because you never know, you could possibly go meet your future husband.”
Payne, 31, died after he fell from the third-floor balcony of the CasaSur Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Paramedics arrived at the scene, but Payne suffered “extremely serious injuries,” including a skull fracture, local health officials said. Resuscitation was not possible.
An autopsy report released Thursday revealed Payne died of multiple serious injuries and “internal and external bleeding” as a result of the balcony fall. The report alleged that alcohol, drugs and destroyed furniture were discovered in Payne’s hotel room.
Before his death, a hotel employee contacted local emergency services to report a guest who had “overindulged on drugs and alcohol.” Though the employee never identified Payne by name, a transcript of the call said staff requested urgent help about a guest “breaking” things in their room.
The hotel employee told 911 they were “afraid” the unnamed man “might do something life-threatening” because there was a balcony in his suite.
Cassidy and Payne had been vacationing in Buenos Aires together, but she returned to Florida two days before Payne died.
She shared online that their stay in South America was longer than intended, and what was supposed to be a short visit turned into a two-week vacation.
“I was so ready to leave, honestly, love South America but I hate staying in one place for too long,” Cassidy revealed in a TikTok video. “We were supposed to be there for like, five days (then) it turned into two weeks and I was just like, ‘I need to go home.’”
— with files from Global News’ Sarah Do Couto