Did Liam Payne commit suicide?
This has been a question floating around the Internet ever since the former One Direction member fell three stories from a hotel in Argentina to his death this month.
Now, meanwhile, we appear to have an answer.
Security footage from the hotel where Payne was staying depicts Payne fainted before accidentally falling to his death on October 16… according to Argentinian journalist Paula Varela.
Varela made this claim during an appearance on Socios del Espectáculo, a program on the Buenos Aires-based TV station Canal 13.
She said that CCTV footage captured Payne’s fall and the moments leading up to it.
To be clear, the public has not yet seen this video yet and it is not available anywhere on the World Wide Web.
“There is footage that is not being released to the media with the balcony scene where you see that Liam faints, and tragically because of where he is, falls from that balcony. If he had been beside his bed, he would have fallen on his bed,” Varela said on the program.
“It’s not that he jumped deliberately. This footage is in the official case files.”
Payne had been staying at the CasaSur hotel for several days at the time of his passing.
A 911 call from the establishment’s manager pained the picture of a very troubled singer very shortly before he died.
“We have a guest who is drunk on drugs and alcohol. And, well, he’s … When he’s conscious, he’s breaking up the whole room. And, well, we need you to send someone, please,” the manager told the operator of Payne.
Based on a subsequent autopsy of the artist, Payne had drugs in his system when he plummeted off the balcony — including something called pink cocaine.
Varela’s statement backs up the findings from this preliminary autopsy, which said that Payne “may have fallen in a state of semi or total unconsciousness” because the position in which the 31-year-old’s body was found and his injuries suggested that he “did not adopt a reflexive posture to protect himself” during the fall.
Buenos Aires emergency services chief Alberto Crescenti said that Payne suffered “serious injuries” that were “incompatible with life” after falling from a third-floor balcony of the CasaSur Palermo Hotel.
“Based on what the team saw, there was apparently a cranial fracture and extremely serious injuries that led to his immediate death,” Crescenti said. “The team could do absolutely nothing. There was no resuscitation because it was confirmed that he had died.”
Varela went on to say this that there is an employee at the hotel is being investigated in connection with the One Direction alum’s death.
He had to get the aforementioned drugs from someone, you know?
This individual “struck up an excellent relationship with Liam. He disobeyed an order from the hotel management. … It was not to take anything into Liam’s room,” Varela said of the worker.
“Because of the good relationship he had with Liam, he requested a car through one of these taxi apps we all use because Liam wanted something.
“He did him that favor, a massive error because he’s being investigated, and they’re seeing what was transferred in that vehicle.”