The Mail on Sunday has published previously unseen details from a 3,000-document police investigation into the death of former One Direction singer Liam Payne, who fell from the balcony of his Buenos Aires hotel room on 16 October 2024. The files reveal a devastating final spiral of drug and alcohol abuse in the hours before his death, painting a far bleaker picture than previously known of a man his own father described as being unrecognisable while in the grip of addiction.

CCTV shows Payne looking gaunt and disoriented in the CasaSur Hotel corridors just an hour before he died, while other images capture him with two escorts, Aldana Serrano and Lucila Goitea, who reportedly clashed with him over payment and appealed to hotel staff for help. His father Geoff told prosecutors Liam "was not in control" and "was not Liam" when using drugs, insisting he had no doubt his son wanted to live, contradicting initial suggestions of possible suicide. Payne had been in Argentina to renew his US visa and watch former bandmate Niall Horan perform, but deteriorated after his girlfriend Kate Cassidy returned home, messaging a friend hours before his death about hiring a prostitute and being seen swinging around a street pole at 3am while waiting for drugs.