A new year has loomed over and yet the former One Direction star’s death is still resonating with many, including his girlfriend Kate Cassidy, 25.
The influencer opened up about the moment she learned that Liam Payne was dead. What started as a fairy tale turned into a nightmare that you can’t wake up from. For her, it was a shock that she is still recovering from.
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The way she learned about her boyfriend’s death
“I feel blessed I didn’t find out over social media because I just couldn’t even imagine that. I was in our home with our dog, scrolling TikTok and one of Liam’s friends called me,” Cassidy told The Sun. She remembered very little to none of what happened next.
Her brain was “blank”
“That moment, it’s like, blank; it’s blacked out in my head. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought it was just a rumor. Or something that somebody made up just to get views. Then instantly I just had a bad feeling in my gut. I was like, ‘Why would somebody make this up? Is this true?’” She recounted.
That’s when she “completely blacked out”
“And I feel like I just completely blacked out. When I officially found the news out to be true, I felt numb. I tried to call him. I called pretty much everybody. Then I was in touch with his family, and my mum got the first flight out to be with me,” she admitted.
Her dog thought she was playing around
“I remember pacing around the house — [our] poor [dog] Nala thought I was trying to play, she kept jumping up at me. I didn’t sleep at all that night,” she recalled.
Sadly for Nala, mommy wasn’t playing, and neither was she in a playing mood after receiving one of the worst news of her life.
His phone rang even after she received the news
She couldn’t remember their last phone conversation, but she could vividly remember his phone ringing even after learning the news of his death.
These sorrowful moments brought back the memory of his horseback riding on the last day she left Argentina. “He looks so happy,” she said of the snap.
She left before the fateful day
Cassidy left Argentina two days before 31-year-old Payne’s tragic plunge out of the third-floor balcony of the Buenos Aires suite. Local officials have concluded that the cause of death was “polytrauma” and “an internal and external hemorrhage.”
If she could go back in time, she would have done it different
“Love is so optimistic, and you just hope that everything will work out at the end. Obviously if I knew, if I could see into the future, I would never have left Argentina,” she explained.
“It was a tragic accident and no, I never did think [he might die young]. But, you know, we did have our own separate lives — this wasn’t the first time we have travelled separately,” she elaborated further.
Her final text to Payne
Cassidy’s final text to the late singer referred to surprise Halloween decorations she had installed in their home, writing him: “I can’t wait for you to get home and see the house.” The reason she went back to the US was to take care of their dog.
How their love story started
Cassidy admitted that she loved Payne since she was 10, but it wasn’t until 2022 that she met him while working as a server in a Charleston, South Carolina, restaurant.
“From the moment I met Liam, I genuinely believed we were soulmates; he was the most humble, charming, normal person you could ever hope to come across, and genuinely one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life,” she explained.
She tried her best with his drug addiction
“With addiction, you just never know when it’s going to come out. I supported Liam through thick and thin, and I always just loved his soul. I always wanted to be there for him. I genuinely always really did try to do anything I could do to help,” she said about the late star’s addiction.
