Liam Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy told the story of how they met in a video shared less than a month before his death at age 31.
The former One Direction star fell from the third floor of the Casa Sur Palmero hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Wednesday.
The pop star had reportedly arrived in the Latin American country earlier this month to attend his former bandmate Niall Horan’s concert.
In a TikTok video uploaded on September 20, New Jersey native Kate recounted how she and Liam met and how their relationship almost never happened.
The couple began dating in October 2022 after they met at a bar in Charleston, South Carolina, where Kate was working as a waitress at the time.
Liam Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy told the story of how they met in a video shared less than a month before his death at age 31.
The former One Direction star fell from the third floor of the Casa Sur Palmero hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Wednesday (pictured with Kate in her latest social media post)
However, in her video, Kate told her followers that their meeting almost never happened because she had desperately tried to leave work that night.
She said: ‘I worked in a bar/lounge called Ritual. All my friends and I worked there, it was only my second week on the job and I didn’t want to work every weekend.
‘They gave me a schedule for the second week and I really wanted to go out. I tried everything in my power to get off and nothing worked.
“On the way to work, my manager texted me and said, ‘Liam Payne from One Direction is here, you’re going to take care of him tonight.'”
Kate admitted she was “scared” when she had to approach Liam’s table and ended up chickening out at first.
She said: ‘When I first approached him I got nervous, stopped and turned around. I guess we made awkward eye contact for a second.
‘We talked about it because he said to (his friend) Conor: “Oh my God, did you see that girl walking over here? I’m not leaving this bar until I get her number.”
Then, two minutes later, I come to. He said, “Is there any way I can get a table inside?” He’s literally sitting inside drinking Red Bulls and I didn’t think about it, I just thought he was too friendly, I didn’t think he was flirting with me.
In a TikTok video uploaded on September 20, Kate recounted how she and Liam met and how their relationship almost never happened.
In her video, Kate told her followers that their meeting almost never happened because she had desperately tried to leave work that night.
Kate said that every time she approached their table, Liam offered to sit with him and soon asked for her number.
She said: ‘Every time I came to the table to check on him, he told me to sit down! I have family in London and I said, “Oh, I’m going to London to see my cousin” and he said, “I’d love to be your tour guide when you come.” I thought, Okay, I’m getting the feeling that you’re flirting with me.
‘He asked me for my number and I didn’t realize you had to put +1 because I’m from the United States. Only my area code, 201, tried to text me and it was still green, not delivered.
‘He thought he had put in the wrong number as if he were not interested. I was freaking out all night and then realized I forgot to put the +1 in and it was done.’
They suffered another mishap that same night when Kate’s phone went off when she went to bed and Liam thought he had blocked her number.
She recalled: “That night, I didn’t actually plug my phone in before I went to bed, so when I woke up in the morning it was off.” Once he finally got the number, he thought he had blocked it because it didn’t say delivered.
‘The next morning I texted him and I was so sorry I responded so late, what time is your flight back to England? He told me: before I go to the airport I can go have lunch with you.
‘We went to lunch, which was really nice, then we went bowling and then we went on a ghost tour, we basically had one of our first dates in a cemetery.
Just days before the shocking death, Kate shared a touching post dedicated to the star.
The 31-year-old rose to fame in 2010 on XFactor with his former bandmates Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson, despite initially auditioning separately.
He was previously in a relationship with British pop sensation Cheryl Cole and the couple welcomed their son Bear Gray on March 22, 2017.
‘He extended his flight and extended it again the next day, so he ended up in Charleston for three days. That’s the story of how we met.
‘Literally, everything happens in a meeting. Don’t leave work because you want to go to a party because you never know, you could end up meeting your future husband.’
Just days before his death, Kate shared a touching post dedicated to the singer.
The blonde beauty snapped a photo of the pop star riding a horse in the countryside, The Sun reports.
Liam could be seen wearing a casual gray t-shirt as he sat on the horse and spoke to someone who appeared to be helping him.
Over the image, Kate wrote: “I’m so grateful for the simple things in life.”
Before the singer’s death, I had seen one last Snapchat post that showed him happily posing with his partner Kate Cassidy as they looked in a mirror. A photograph originally taken last August.
Other posts from the final moments of the star’s life showed him enjoying lunch in his hotel room, where he revealed that the couple had “woken up at 1pm every day” and had decided on Forest Gump as their costume. Halloween.
On Wednesday, thousands of fans gathered outside the hotel where Liam died.
Some were photographed lighting candles and praying for the singer.
Another tragic selfie was captioned: “Beautiful day in Argentina” before the star shared a photo from her hotel, writing: “Happy to have had some time off” followed by a heart emoji.
He shared another photo with Kate with the caption: “Quality time.”
Following reports of his death, spokesman for the city’s ambulance service provider, Alberto Crescenti, said Payne had fallen about 40 meters and suffered “serious injuries that were incompatible with life.”
He said: ‘The alarm was raised at 5:04 pm local time saying that a person was lying in an internal courtyard of Casa Sur.
‘At 5:11 pm an ambulance arrived and the man was certified dead.
‘Later we discovered that he had been a famous singer. Unfortunately, the injuries he had suffered as a result of the fall proved fatal. There was no possibility of resuscitating him.’
Liam began his quest for stardom when he initially auditioned for the X Factor in 2008.
At just 14, Liam impressed the judges with his own version of Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon, but was later eliminated from the show.
However, Payne gave his singing career another shot by auditioning for the competition again in 2010, where he quickly rose to fame as part of One Direction.
He and his former bandmates Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson were brought together by Simon Cowell and former judge Nicole Scherzinger, who saw their potential as a group.
After releasing five albums with one of the biggest boy bands of all time, Liam released his first solo album titled LP1 in 2019.
His single Strip That Down co-written with Ed Sheeran rose to number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that same year.
Throughout her music career, the pop star collaborated with artists such as J Balvin, French Montana, Dixie D’Amelio and A Boogie Wit da Hoodie.
He was previously in a relationship with British pop sensation Cheryl Cole and the couple welcomed their son Bear Gray on March 22, 2017. The parents later separated in 2018.
He was previously in a relationship with British pop sensation Cheryl Cole and the couple welcomed their son Bear Gray on March 22, 2017.
Following his romance with the Girls Aloud singer, Liam had an on-again, off-again relationship with his ex-fiancée Maya Henry, with the couple breaking up in May 2022.
