Fans around the world are mourning Liam Payne, the former One Direction band member who tragically died yesterday at the age of 31.
Now, an autopsy has revealed the singer’s official cause of death.
Payne died on October 16 after falling from the balcony of his third-floor room at the CasaSur Palermo hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After the singer was taken to the city’s morgue, medical professionals performed an autopsy to determine an official cause of death.
According to a report from National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office No. 14., Payne died from “polytrauma, internal and external hemorrhage.”
The case is being investigated as a “doubtful death,” though it appears Payne was alone at the time of the fall. His girlfriend Kate Cassidy had left Argentina two days prior.
The report also noted that Payne was “going through some kind of outbreak due to substance abuse.” Authorities at the scene reported that there were narcotics and alcoholic beverages in Payne’s hotel room.
Final hours: drugs, “trashed” hotel, 911 call
In a chilling 911 call made just moments before Payne’s death, hotel staff expressed concerns about the musician’s behavior, reporting that he was trashing his room under the influence of alcohol and drugs, warning that his life “may be in danger” and urging police to “come urgently.”
Payne had been open about his struggles with addiction in the past, admitting that he was addicted to “pills and booze” at the height of his fame with One Direction.
“In the band… the best way to secure us, because of how big we’d got, was just to lock us in our rooms. What’s in the room? A mini-bar,” he said in a 2021 interview on the The Diary of a CEO podcast. “So at a certain point I thought, I’m just going to have a party-for-one and that seemed to carry on for many years of my life. Then you look back at how long you’ve been drinking and you’re like, ‘Jesus Christ, that’s a long time.’”
In May 2023, Payne said he was 100 days sober after a stay in rehab and felt “amazing.”
Fans mourn: Tributes to Liam Payne
The news of Liam Payne’s tragic death at such a young age has shocked and saddened fans around the world, as well as his peers in the music industry.
