The father of late One Direction pop star Liam Payne has made an emotional visit to Argentina to identify his son’s body and visit the hotel where the singer died.
Geoff Payne landed in Buenos Aires in the early hours of Friday morning at around 6am, according to reports.
After briefly stopping at a hotel in the capital, the late star’s father travelled to the City Judicial Morgue on Viamonte Street to see his son’s body and formally identify it, ahead of the repatriation of the body.
Reports said Payne Snr is being accompanied by British diplomatic staff and by a trusted security guard who has previously worked with One Direction and the Payne family.
Liam, a global star thanks to his time in One Direction, tragically lost his life on Wednesday evening after plunging from the third-floor balcony at the Casa Sur Hotel in the Palmero neighbourhood of Buenos Aires.
The 31-year-old, a member of one of Britain's most successful pop groups, suffered fatal injuries in the fall and died almost immediately after impact.
Hotel visit
Fans have left a mound of letters, flowers and pictures of the singer at a makeshift shrine outside the hotel where he died.
After leaving the morgue early Friday evening, Payne Snr left the morgue in a vehicle and travelled to the Hotel CasaSur.
He was greeted with a thick media scrum upon arrival, with reporters and camera operators crowding the few paces he walked to the door. Fans jeered the media and attempted to block the cameras as Liam’s father entered.
Some time later, the father went outside to look at the tributes, flowers, messages and photos left by fans. In contrast to the scenes just an hour before, everyone present fell silent, giving the mourning father space.
Surrounded by a hundred or so people, Payne Snr stopped to read messages – several in English – and kissed some photos.
Before re-entering the hotel, he scanned the mostly female faces in the crowd and silently mouthed: “Thank you.”
As he re-entered the hotel, fans embraced each other and broke into tears.
Shortly after, the crowd broke into a spontaneous applause.
Tragic death
Liam Payne suffered "multiple traumas" and "internal and external haemorrhaging" after falling from the hotel balcony on Wednesday night, an autopsy concluded.
Due to the position of the body, experts deduce that “Payne did not adopt a reflexive posture to protect himself and that he could have fallen in a state of semi- or total unconsciousness.”
He suffered 25 wounds in total.
Police have ruled out foul play and are awaiting the results of toxicological tests.
The singer, who had spoken publicly about struggles with alcohol and coping with fame from an early age, was alone at the time and appeared to be "going through an episode of substance abuse," prosecutors said.
He was found dead after hotel staff called emergency services twice to report "a guest who is overwhelmed by drugs and alcohol, and destroying his room," according to leaked audio messages published by local media.
Outlets also published photos which they said showed the interior of his hotel room, with white powder on a table next to a piece of aluminium foil and a lighter, and a television with a broken screen.
According to reporting by the La Nación newspaper, citing unnamed judicial sources, two women have testified that they were with Payne in the hours before his death. They say they consumed alcohol but did not see him use drugs. The witnesses allege that they later had an argument with the musician.
Some hotel guests have given interviews to other media outlets stating that Payne had smashed a laptop in the lobby before heading up to his room alone.
Some time later, he fell from the balcony to his death.
Tributes
His former One Direction bandmates, Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik, said they were "completely devastated" by his death.
The singer's girlfriend, influencer Kate Cassidy, wrote on Instagram on Friday that she had loved him “unconditionally and completely” and felt “totally lost.”
Also saying goodbye publicly was singer Cheryl Cole, the mother of Bear, Payne's seven-year-old son, who said their child will have to “face the reality of never seeing his father again.”
At Buenos Aires’ famous Obelisco, in the centre of the city, a hundred or so fans bid farewell to Payne on Thursday night with singalongs. Carrying flowers and lighting candles, most were in their 20s, weeping for the loss of their idol.
Payne travelled to Argentina to attend a concert by his bandmate Horan at the Movistar Arena on October 2.
He extended his trip after his girlfriend returned to the United States.
– TIMES/AFP/NA
