The sister of One Direction singer Liam Payne learned of her brother’s fatal plunge from a hotel balcony last week from a news alert on her phone.
“When I saw the news pop up on my phone that you had left us I went cold, I wanted so much for this to be untrue,” Nicola Payne wrote on Instagram Monday.
Authorities in Argentina said the 31-year-old popstar had various drugs in his system when he either fell or jumped from the third floor of the Casa Sur Hotel Wednesday. He was immediately declared dead.
Nicola Payne wrote that she’s always been proud of her brother, whom she described as “kind” and “brilliant.” Those feelings haven’t changed, she said.
“We don’t have many pictures together as we never really did that as a family,” she wrote. “We never wanted you to feel like you were in a room of fans, but we your biggest fans always and forever.”
The singer’s mourning sister expressed regret that online content documenting her brother’s final moments are unflattering, but hopes he’s in a better place.
“I hope you finally found peace up there and that you’ll be able to look after us all as you have done in life,” she wrote, promising that her nephew Bear will grow up knowing his father loved him.
Liam and Nicola Payne’s other sibling, Ruth Gibbins, also used Instagram to share her grief over the weekend.
“Liam was born with music in his veins,” she wrote. “It was clear from a very young age he just had that quality that would make him a star.”