Liam Payne battled with his addiction demons for years and desperately tried to get sober, his close friend claims.
The former One Direction singer fatally fell from a third-floor balcony of a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in October last year and tragically died at the age of 31. He had been on holiday with his girlfriend, influencer Kate Cassidy, but 48 hours before the X Factor star’s death, she flew home alone to Miami, US, to look after their dog.
Liam stayed in Argentina and linked up with his close friend, multimillionaire businessman Roger Nores, who left the singer’s hotel an hour before his fatal fall. Roger has been charged with negligent homicide following an investigation by Argentinian authorities. He vehemently denies claims that he was responsible for Liam’s care before he died.
Roger has now spoken out in a bombshell interview for the first time and opened up about how he tried to help Liam overcome his addictions in the final months of his life. He claims that Liam was sober for four months in the US before relapsing during a trip to the UK in August. He also states that Liam got sober again, before tragically spiralling in his final days.
Liam’s final months in Roger’s words
Roger and Liam formed an unlikely bond in 2020, and for years, the businessman was allegedly unaware of Liam’s dark demons. But in May 2024, he says he received a call from Liam’s manager to tell him that Liam had “dangerously overdosed” in the UK and doctors had “resuscitated” him. Roger claims Liam’s dad, Geoff, had him sectioned for 90 days after the incident, but Liam “talked his way out after just three”.
It was then he allegedly turned to Roger. “He knew he needed help. I was in LA working at the time. I said if he could get to Miami, I’d meet him there,” he told the Daily Mail. Liam moved into a Florida apartment with his new girlfriend, Kate, and Roger and another friend allegedly surrounded him with a team of professionals, including an addiction specialist and psychiatrist. Roger said: “He did four months sober.”
Roger claimed that Liam “required 24-hour attention” and it was “draining”, but as a friend, he wanted to help him. He said he noticed a huge change in Liam, who was apparently looking after himself and back in the gym, but then “everything went wrong”.
According to the businessman, in August 2024, the One Direction star travelled back to the UK for a work commitment – a decision Roger didn’t agree with. He believed it would be “too easy for him to relapse” and the pair had the “biggest argument” over it.
Unfortunately, just as Roger feared, Liam allegedly relapsed while in the UK. But the pal says that when Liam returned to the US, he appeared to go sober again.
Roger says he saw Liam a few times and was under the impression he hadn’t touched a single drug, but sadly, it did not last. Roger met Liam in Argentina and spent time with him a few days before his death. On October 16, the day he died, Roger left Liam in the lobby of the hotel at 4.06pm, just an hour before he fatally fell from the balcony. The friend claims that Liam was sober when he left.
After Roger left, Liam’s behaviour became more erratic. The receptionist pleaded with emergency services to come to his aid and said: “We have a guest who’s off his head on drugs and is destroying everything in his room. We need someone to come.” A toxicology report found traces of alcohol and cocaine in Liam’s system.
Heartbreaking wedding and best man plans
Three days before Liam died, he allegedly asked Roger if he would be the best man at his wedding to Kate – despite having not yet proposed. “He told me he wanted to marry Kate. We discussed ideas for his proposal and then he asked me to be best man. ‘You’ll have to do a speech’, he joked, but he told me it would be fun,” Roger told the Mail. Heartbreakingly, Liam never got around to proposing.
Liam met Kate at a bar in South Carolina in September 2022, where she was working as a waitress. He asked for her number and then took her bowling for their first date. The attraction was immediate. In an interview with The Sun earlier this month, Kate described Liam as one of the greatest people she’d ever met and said their relationship was similar to a ‘fairytale’.
Liam’s battle with narcotics and alcohol
But Liam had many struggles. The singer turned to alcohol and drugs to cope at the height of 1D’s dizzying fame, and admitted to going through a wild “pills and booze phase”. Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett in 2019, Liam said: “I was worried how far my rock bottom was going to be. Where’s rock bottom for me? And you would never have seen it. I’m very good at hiding it. No one would ever have seen it.”
In 2022, Liam revealed that he had spent three months in a wellness clinic in Louisiana, US, to focus on himself and his mental health. During his 100-day stay, he went sober, had minimal contact with the outside world and spent a lot of time focusing on art and poetry.
In July 2023, Liam uploaded a video on YouTube called ‘I’m Back…’, where he opened up about seeking help. In the clip, he thanked his ex-girlfriend and mother of his son, Cheryl, for supporting his decision to get better and added that his former bandmates had stuck by him. He said: “I needed to take some time out for myself. I kind of became someone who I didn’t really recognise any more.”
Dad Geoff ‘tried to get him treatment after drug relapse’
Months before his death, Liam’s dad, Geoff, reportedly tried to get him to enter a psychiatric treatment centre, but the 1D star is said to have refused. According to Rolling Stone earlier this month, Geoff allegedly tried to intervene after Liam left rehab before completing the programme. However, it’s claimed Liam refused his father’s wishes to go to the treatment centre.
The publication also claimed that the singer’s team had ‘baulked’ at the idea of him touring South America. They are said to have thought he was ‘in no shape to be on the road’. Rolling Stone goes on to allege Liam missed several key promo opportunities for his single. This is thought to have included interviews, performances and events.
A month before his death, Universal Republic allegedly dropped him over these factors and concerns including for the star’s health. A source told the publication: “It was decided by the label, given these factors combined with concerns for his health, to terminate the working relationship rather than further release music.”
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