Liam Payne was “arguing with a woman about money” in the last moments before his death, offering her £15,000, it has been claimed.
On Wednesday evening, the 31-year-old One Direction star died in the courtyard of the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires after falling from the third-floor balcony.
Shortly before his death, he announced his intentions for the day on social media through Snapchat, the Mirror reports. The head of reception at Hotel Casa Sur called 911 twice, begging for “someone to come” after revealing that a visitor was “off his head on drugs and destroying everything in his room”.
According to LA NACIÓN, Liam went down to the hotel lobby, “visibly out of his mind”. The staff that engaged with him advised him to return to his hotel room, but minutes later, he fell from the third storey.
Guests at the hotel have shared accounts about their interactions with Liam before his terrible death. One visitor, Michael Fleischmann, claimed Liam appeared “a little wild” when arguing with a mystery woman about his finances immediately before falling from the balcony.
The US-based guest claimed he repeated to the woman: “I’ll give you $20,000 (£15,311) dollars just because I can. I have $55million and I like to help people.” He added that the woman spoke in Spanish with the hotel manager translating the conversation to Liam at around 2pm local time.
According to the Buenos Aires Herald, Fleischmann only discovered that the man “with an English accent who seemed to be causing a disturbance” in the hotel lobby was the One Direction singer after news of his death surfaced. Fleischmann described the singer as “very upset, agitated, a little wild, walking around and pacing” while also being “very energised”.
Another hotel visitor, using the pseudonym Rebecca, told MailOnline that he told her “I’m so f***ed up” during a 30-minute chat. Rebecca revealed in an interview that Liam’s “bizarre” final moments had left her shaken. She claimed that he “wanted to get recognised” while in the lobby.
He departed, then returned to the lobby with a laptop and began reading emails in public. Rebecca said she saw the singer open an email that “obviously upset him”. “Suddenly he took the computer, shouted ‘f**k this s**t mate!’ and started bashing the computer on the ground”.
According to Rebecca, workers and visitors at the high-end hotel were astonished, so she walked over to see if the frightened celebrity was okay. “But he just kind of grunted,” Rebecca noted. “Then he said, ‘I used to be in a boyband. That is why I am so f**ked up'”.
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond. Sign up to our daily newsletter.