Almost since I began my extensive reporting on the tragic death of One Direction singer Liam Payne last year, I have been asked one question more than any other: whatever happened to Liam’s girlfriend, Kate Cassidy?
For it was the 25-year-old beauty who – just two days before Liam’s death on October 16 – flew home to Florida, leaving the man she calls her ‘charming soulmate’ back in Argentina. The troubled star then embarked on a reckless drink and hard drugs spree that ended with his untimely demise, falling from the third-floor balcony of his luxury hotel suite and suffering multiple injuries.
Almost four months on – and Kate has finally spoken out in an interview with The Sun newspaper published yesterday, for which she is believed to have been paid a generous fee.
Fighting back tears, she is clearly still traumatised by the sudden death of her internationally famous lover. But I fear that, rather than providing comfort and clarity to millions of distraught One Direction fans, her interview only raises further questions as to exactly what happened in the days leading up to Liam’s death.
Kate first caught Payne’s eye in late 2022 when she was working as a waitress at a restaurant in South Carolina. The pair quickly became a couple in what she calls a ‘fairytale romance’, turning her into a social media star in her own right – with more than 2.5million followers.
However charmed a life Kate had been leading courtesy of Payne’s fame and rumoured £50million fortune, her grief and upset over the past four months remain palpable.
Yet her interview provides no final clarity on one essential question: what prompted Kate to leave Buenos Aires and the man she called ‘my best friend, the love of my life’ in the first place?
We know that Liam had been forced to remain in Argentina due to issues renewing his US visa. Kate, however, had seemingly no interest in waiting with him. For in a video posted to TikTok on October 14, the starlet seemed to put her decision down to boredom and frustration.
Payne and Kate met in late 2022 when she was working as a waitress in South Carolina
The 25-year-old flew home to Florida from Buenos Aires in the days leading up to Payne’s untimely death
Kate has offered several reasons for this departure – most recently claiming it was to care for the couple’s dog, Nala
‘I was so ready to leave,’ she declared in a voiceover on the video, which featured clips of her journey home both in a taxi and on a plane.
‘I love South America but I hate staying in one place for too long,’ she continued. ‘And we were supposed to be there for like five days and it turned into two weeks and I was like: “I need to go home.”’
However, in this week’s bombshell interview, Kate instead claims that she returned to Florida for the sake of their dog, Nala.
‘I had a responsibility, we had a responsibility,’ she said. ‘We had our dog.’
No doubt this is true, but it is an entirely new allegation. Kate’s October 14 TikTok makes no mention of the dog.
In her red-top interview, Kate also claims: ‘Liam was in such a good headspace when I left.’
This strikes me as a strange assessment considering what we now know of Liam’s erratic behaviour after she left, which included smashing a laptop in a hotel lobby, ordering prostitutes to his bedroom and consuming a cocktail of illegal drugs.
Perhaps Liam was indeed in a ‘good headspace’ when she left – but if so, he was clearly a mercurial figure. I have also established that he had been using drugs previously in 2024, including while filming a Netflix show in Manchester.
Liam’s close friend Roger Nores – who has been repeatedly photographed with Kate – has been charged with negligent homicide by the Argentinian authorities for ‘abandoning’ Liam on the day of his death.
Knowing the case as well as I do, I find the decision to charge Roger bizarre. The wealthy Argentinian energy tycoon had no legal or contractual responsibilities towards Liam, who was clearly out of control and who was, ultimately, responsible for his own actions. A waiter and another hotel worker also face drug charges in relation to the star’s death.
There is no suggestion that Kate has committed any wrongdoing.
While Kate’s interview may not have had the desired effect of quelling all the speculation surrounding Liam’s death, it has at least gone some way to reminding us that at the heart of this global story are real people whose lives have been blown apart by tragedy.
Kate declared in the interview that she ‘never would have left Argentina’ if she had known Liam was going to die. I have no doubt she is telling the truth.
