According to new reports, Liam Payne intentionally jumped from his third-floor balcony, but he wasn’t trying to harm himself. Instead he was trying to escape the hotel room he was dragged into by staff who then “forced” him to stay.
According to recent reports, Liam Payne, who was 31 when he died October 16, had a history of using hotel room balconies to escape confinement.
TMZ reports that Payne “hated” being locked inside rooms, “something he had to deal with during his time in One Direction.”
In September, only one month before his fatal plunge, Payne’s bodyguard feared the singer was on a “drug binge” and trapped him in his room at a Florida rental house.
That night, Payne used the balcony as his escape route, safely repelling down a garden hose to the ground.
Apparently, when he plunged to his death from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room in Argentina, he was hoping for another safe landing.
Carried to his room
TMZ reports that witness statements, surveillance footage, a 911 call, and the police report all support this theory.
The outlet acquired surveillance footage from the lobby of the Casa Sur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, recorded shortly before the singer’s tragic death.
The footage shows Payne standing upright and then behaving “erratically” in the hotel’s main area, resisting staff members who were trying to get him back to his room.
Attempting to restrain the man, three people are then seen carrying Payne to his hotel room, only minutes before his death.
Firmly handled by the three men, the “What Makes you Beautiful” singer is “splayed out” and “clearly conscious,” “holding his head upright.”
Balcony was his escape
Shortly after his feet are lifted from the ground, he’s taken to his hotel room door and again struggles, refusing to go inside.
“The hotel used a master key to enter the room, put Liam inside,” and, according to the police report obtained by TMZ, “they removed a mirror from the wall directly outside his room, presumably so he wouldn’t damage it.”
It’s speculated that Payne told the workers he would use the balcony as an escape if he was forced into the room, a message that was relayed by the frantic staff member who called 911.
The 911 transcript, published by Reuters, confirms this idea: “We need you to send someone urgently because, well, I don’t know if the guest’s life is at risk. He is in a room with a balcony. And, well, we are a little afraid that he will do something that will put his life at risk.”
The “Teardrops” singer was left alone, locked in his hotel room and minutes later, he allegedly followed through with his threat and used the balcony as an escape.
Getaway bags
When his body was found on the ground, he had a bag strapped around his shoulder, that TMZ reports “was not on him when he was carried from the lobby.”
There was also a black New York Yankees hat found nearby, another accessory he wasn’t earlier wearing, suggesting he put the cap on his head while he was inside the room.
According to police reports, Payne wasn’t planning on a three-storey drop, instead he was heading from the third floor balcony to the second floor balcony, making his jump considerably shorter. This idea is supported by a brown leather bag discovered on the balcony below, two days later by another hotel worker.
The bag, “not the bag strapped to his shoulder,” was packed with pills and a bottle of whiskey, along with a note that said “for Liam.”
“Presumably, he dropped the bag down to the [second] floor balcony before attempting to drop down himself,” TMZ writes.
Though the coroner says he may have been unconscious when he dropped from the balcony, he was conscious before inside the room where he prepared his getaway bags.
Three charged
An insider told TMZ that Argentinian authorities are trying to protect the hotel that allegedly prioritized the property over a guest’s safety.
According to a November 7 press release from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, three people have been charged with “supply and facilitation of narcotics,” and one faces additional charges of “abandonment of a person followed by death,” a sentence that carries up to 15 years in prison.
None of those charged have been named.
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