🚨Liam Payne was in Argentina with girlfriend Kate Cassidy

🚨She returned to the U.S. at least two days before his death

🚨They had been dating since 2022


The girlfriend of former One Direction member Liam Payne, who fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina on Wednesday, is an influencer from New Jersey.

Buenos Aires police said Payne fell from the third floor of the Casa Sur Hotel in the trendy Palermo neighborhood of Argentina’s capital, resulting in “extremely serious injuries.” Medics confirmed his death on the spot, the police said in a statement.

Pablo Policicchio, the communications director for the Buenos Aires Security Ministry, said in a statement to The Associated Press that Payne “had jumped from the balcony of his room.” Police rushed to the hotel in response to an emergency call just after 5 p.m. local time, he said, warning of an “aggressive man who could be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”

Payne posted a video hours before his death showing him with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy, according to People magazine, having breakfast and enjoying a "lovely day in Argentina." However, in a video on her TikTok account, she said she had gone home several days ago.

“I was so ready to leave. I honestly love South America but I hate staying in one place for too long,” Cassidy said. “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.’”

The Daily Voice reports Cassidy graduated from Northern Valley Regional High School in Old Tappan and lived in Harrington Park. According to her Instagram, she graduated from Coastal Carolina University in 2021.

Her TikTok and Instagram posts center around her travels with Payne, her outfits and food.

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Met while she worked at a bar

Cassidy, in a TikTok video, said she met Payne during her second week of working at a Charleston, South Carolina bar as a bartender. She was assigned to serve Payne while he was a customer at the bar. They made eye contact, and Payne decided he was not leaving until he got Cassidy's number.

Payne told Cassidy he wasn't drinking and took a table inside. He kept trying to get Cassidy to sit down but she admittedly wasn't picking up on the fact he was flirting. Once he offered to be her tour guide on her next trip to London to visit family, did she get the hint.

When she finally gave Payne her number she forgot the international code of +1 for a call to the United States.

"He literally thought I put the wrong number in as if I wasn't interested. So he was literally freaking out but then realized she forgot the +1. It then obviously went through," she said in the video. He stayed an extra two days in Charleston with Cassidy.

They made their first public appearance together at the British Fashion Awards in December 2022.

Liam Payne and Kate Cassidy attend the Grand Reveal Weekend for Atlantis The Royal, Dubai's new ultra-luxury hotel in 2023 (Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Atlantis The Royal)
Liam Payne and Kate Cassidy attend the Grand Reveal Weekend for Atlantis The Royal, Dubai's new ultra-luxury hotel in 2023 (Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Atlantis The Royal)
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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