One of final folks to see Liam Payne alive tells her astonishing story

Liam Payne made a shocking admission just minutes before he plunged to his death aged 31 from his hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, MailOnline can reveal today.

A young woman staying in the same hotel said she was told by the former One Direction singer: ‘I used to be in a boy band – that’s why I’m so f**ked up’.

In her compelling account, Rebecca, one of the last people to speak to the popstar at the Casa Sur Hotel in the Argentine capital on Wednesday, claimed that Payne:

• Showed ‘disturbing and weird behaviour’ as he smashed his laptop on the floor;
• Grabbed a young woman and pretended to choke her in the hotel lift; and
• Was accompanied by an ‘entourage’ of two women and a British man.

Rebecca, not her real name, a 28-year-old IT consultant from Washington DC, took these haunting photographs of Payne in the lobby shortly before his death. 

She said his bizarre behaviour and its horrific aftermath had left her ‘shaken’. As tributes continued to pour in for Payne, including from his former bandmates:

Rebecca’s surprise 30-minute long encounter with Payne took place in the foyer of the hotel, where she was staying for a wedding. Payne had been due to check out on Wednesday morning, but still had not done so by late afternoon, she claimed.

Rebecca took her photos from 4.26pm local time (8.26pm UK time) – which is also when Payne made the ‘boy band’ comment. Just 36 minutes later, hotel staff raised the alarm at 5.04pm following Payne’s fall. An ambulance arrived at 5.11pm and Payne was then certified dead.

Rebecca told MailOnline in an exclusive interview: ‘One of my friends was due to get his suite, so the hotel staff were a little on edge because he still hadn’t checked out at 4.30pm, but also because of his behaviour.

‘I came into the hotel, and he was waiting by the elevator, and it was so clear he wanted someone to recognise him, there was something a bit desperate about him.

‘I was with my friends and we did know who he was, but none of us were that bothered.

‘When the lift came he suddenly said to us without any prompting: ‘Yes, I’m Liam!’ really drawing it out, and then said ‘All right come on you lot, get in the elevator with me, I love a cuddle’.

‘I decided against it and waited for the next one, but some of the other girls got in with him and half way up, he started saying ‘Oh, you’re Americans, I live in West Palm Beach.

‘I know Americans. You guys are f***ing crazy! You guys are f***ing dangerous!

‘And then he grabs a girl who I think was with him and starts fake choking her, only lightly, but the others thought it was really disturbing.’

Rebecca said she returned to the lobby ten minutes later and shortly afterwards, Payne arrived back, dangling his open laptop nonchalantly from one corner.

He then began reading emails after flopping onto a sofa, wearing a white vest, cargo pants and trainers.

‘I have a blind relative and I realised he had the laptop on its accessibility setting, for some reason, so that each time he moved the mouse, hovering over something the machine spoke out loud to say where the cursor was,’ said Rebecca.

‘I assumed he was doing that for the attention too. Then he opened his emails and saw one which obviously upset him. Suddenly he took the computer, shouted ‘f**k this s**t mate!’ and started bashing the computer on the ground.

‘Everyone, especially the staff was really shocked. It’s a high-end hotel and his behaviour was so out of place – people were just chilling.

‘I went over, asked ‘are you OK?’ But he just kind of grunted. Then he said ‘I used to be in a boyband. That’s why I’m so f**ked up.’

‘I couldn’t believe he’d just come out and said something like that. There was a lot more swearing and he took the laptop over and went to get back in the lift. 

‘After he’d gone, the British guy from his entourage, who I think was called Roger, came over and apologised on his behalf, saying ‘I’m sorry, he just gets so high sometimes’.

‘I did wonder what these people with him were doing to help him, but maybe they had tried and failed. The hotel staff were freaking out and watching him really nervously. I could see one of them was on the phone to what I assumed was security or the police.

‘I’ve never taken cocaine, but he was behaving exactly as I’d imagine someone would on the drug – he wasn’t focusing, and his pupils were dilated, and he was behaving in aggressive way – though not to anyone in particular.’

Rebecca couldn’t work out why Payne was hanging around the lobby but wondered afterwards whether he was planning to meet someone to resupply his drugs.

Then after a few minutes, he returned to the lobby, she recalled.

Rebecca said: ‘He walked in again and just tripped and fell flat on his face, sprawling across the floor. The staff came to help him and get him back in the elevator, and that’s when I took the last photo.

‘You can just see the arm of the English guy who was with him, holding the lift door open before taking them up to the third floor again.

‘It wasn’t long after that when the police arrived and initially we thought they were just going to kick him out, but then when the staff started running around like crazy, we suddenly realised the seriousness of what had happened.

‘Some of my friends had seen him falling, it was awful, and at first they thought he might have just injured himself, but then we saw the body out in the courtyard, and later they brought him out on a stretcher, it was all so horrible.’

Rebecca said that after the horrific experience, she spent Wednesday night with friends away from the hotel, partly because of what had happened, but also the noise of teenage fans outside in the street singing and crying.

She added: ‘They were playing his music all night and someone actually brought along a Ouija board to try and communicate with Liam, it was crazy.’

Payne, who rose to fame with One Direction on The X Factor, died after falling from a third floor balcony of the Casa Sur Hotel on Wednesday.

He died of multiple traumas and ‘internal and external haemorrhage’, a post-mortem examination report said.

Argentina’s National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office No 16 said it was investigating the incident as an ‘inconclusive death’ following the report.

Payne’s family said they were ‘heartbroken’, adding: ‘Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul.’

A joint statement from his One Direction bandmates said they were ‘completely devastated’ and will miss the singer ‘terribly’, adding the ‘memories we shared with him will be treasured forever’.

In a separate statement, Styles said the years he spent with Payne ‘will forever remain among the most cherished years of my life.’

‘I will miss him always, my lovely friend,’ three-time Grammy winner Styles said in a statement on Instagram.

Payne’s ‘greatest joy was making other people happy, and it was an honour to be alongside him as he did it’, Styles wrote.

‘Liam lived wide open, with his heart on his sleeve, he had an energy for life that was infectious,’ he said. ‘He was warm, supportive, and incredibly loving. The years we spent together will forever remain among the most cherished years of my life.’

Styles said his ‘heart breaks’ for Payne’s family and his seven-year-old son Bear, who he shared with his former partner, Girls Aloud singer Cheryl.

Fellow One Direction star Louis Tomlinson vowed to be an uncle to Payne’s son in a separate Instagram statement.

‘I want you to know that if Bear ever needs me I will be the uncle he needs in his life and tell him stories of how amazing his dad was,’ the 32-year-old said.

Tomlinson said Payne was ‘the most vital part of One Direction’, describing his ‘perfect pitch, his stage presence, (and) his gift for writing’.

‘I’m so grateful that we got even closer since the band, speaking on the phone for hours, reminiscing about all the thousands of amazing memories we had together is a luxury I thought I’d have with you for life,’ he said.

‘I would have loved to share the stage with you again but it wasn’t to be.’

Tomlinson said he and Payne had planned to get ‘back in the studio together to try and recreate the writing chemistry we had built up in the band’, adding that he wished he had the ‘chance to say goodbye’ to ‘one of my best friends’.

Both Tomlinson and former One Direction star Zayn Malik said they had ‘lost a brother’.

Malik, who left the band in 2015 citing the need to have ‘some private time out of the spotlight’ before embarking on a solo career, thanked Payne for ‘supporting me through some of the most difficult times in my life’ in a separate post on Instagram.

‘When I was missing home as a 17 yr old kid you would always be there with a positive outlook and reassuring smile and let me know you were my friend and that I was loved,’ he said.

Malik said he ‘butted heads’ with Payne at times because he was ‘headstrong’ and ‘opinionated’, but ‘always secretly respected’ him for it.

‘I will cherish all the memories I have with you in my heart forever, there is no words that justify or explain how I feel right now other than beyond devastated,’ the 31-year-old added.

Among those paying tribute was Camila Cabello, who rose to fame on the US version of The X Factor in 2012 after forming the girl group Fifth Harmony.

‘Thank you Liam for all the joy you brought my friends and I’ she wrote on Instagram. ‘It really made an impression on me as a young girl to meet a member of a group I loved and have him be so kind.

‘It’s a tragedy to have him gone way too soon.’

After Payne’s death, five witnesses were questioned in order to reconstruct what happened, the prosecutor’s office said.

Reports said staff at the hotel made two calls to emergency services with audio revealing a staff member had asked for assistance for a guest who was ‘intoxicated by drugs and alcohol‘.

Police in the capital said the music star’s hotel room had been ‘in complete disarray’ with ‘various items broken’ – adding that a whiskey bottle, lighter and mobile phone had been retrieved from the internal hotel courtyard where Payne’s body was found.

One Direction fans mourned his death at a vigil outside the Argentine hotel where they lit candles and laid flowers.

The band toured across the globe and had five chart-topping albums, as well as four number one singles in the UK chart with tracks including What Makes You Beautiful and Little Things.

Payne, who was born in Wolverhampton, released his debut solo album LP1 in December 2019, which included the songs Polaroid and Strip That Down featuring Quavo.

One of his most famous songs, For You, was a collaboration between him and the singer Rita Ora for the film Fifty Shades Freed in 2018.

Hours after his death, Ora sang their song while an image of the pair was projected on to the screen behind her during a performance in Osaka, Japan.

Were you at the Casa Sur Hotel? Please email: [email protected]