A detailed account of Liam Payne’s tragic final hours – as told by two prostitutes who spent the day with the One Direction star in his sordid drug-strewn hotel room – can today be revealed by The Mail on Sunday.
The sex workers’ extraordinary sworn statements shed new light on the singer’s mammoth all-day cocaine and whisky bender – and his emotionally fragile state of mind – before he plunged to his death in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on October 16, 2024.
Amid ongoing speculation about the events leading up to Liam’s fatal 46ft fall, the astonishing documents obtained by this newspaper offer a vivid, first-hand account of that fateful day – given as witness statements just hours after the star’s death at the age of 31.
In their harrowing accounts to investigators, prostitutes Aldana Serrano and Lucila Goitea, who both had sex with Liam, claimed the singer:
- Flew into a rage when they asked for the $5,000 (£3,700) he promised them for their services;
- Fell to his knees begging them to stay as he admitted ‘money didn’t make him happy’;
- Smashed his £30,000 gold Rolex in a rage ‘but told us he could get ten of those’ before destroying a TV with three punches;
- Drunkenly serenaded the women with his own songs before begging for cocaine;
- Spoke of his son, Bear, now aged nine, whom he had with Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole, as he begged them not to leave.
A haunted-looking Liam Payne meeting fans in Argentina prior to falling 46ft from the balcony of his third-floor room at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel
Lucila Goitea, 29, told investigators she and Ms Serrano worked as escorts ‘from time to time’ and had been doing so for around year
Aldana Serrano, whose profile Liam found on an Argentine escort site. She claims he then called her on WhatsApp
Liam died instantly after falling 46ft from the balcony of his third-floor room at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel.
Subsequent toxicology reports showed cocaine, alcohol and the powerful sedative Klonopin in his blood. The investigation into his death is ongoing, with two men facing jail for allegedly supplying him with drugs.
Hours after his death sent shockwaves around the world, Aldana, 32, and Lucila, 29 – described as ‘key witnesses’ in the case – sat down with investigators to give their four-page statements, beginning by swearing to tell the truth or face up to four years in jail.
A source close to the case last night explained the significance of the women’s accounts, saying: ‘Because Liam had so many fans and because his death so young was so shocking, there is a lot of misinformation out there.
‘These sworn statements by the women who were in the room with him on the day he died is the closest we will ever get to the truth about what happened.
‘These statements were given after they spent his last day with him. They were sworn under pain of perjury that same night. They were key witnesses, in many ways the most important. Their story is invaluable in piecing together what really happened to Liam.’
The singer, who had long struggled with addiction, had arrived in Buenos Aires 16 days before his death to renew his US visa and watch a concert by former One Direction bandmate Niall Horan.
Liam’s girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, was with him for the first two weeks of the trip, as was Roger Nores, an Argentine businessman and close friend. Both said Liam was sober and drug-free on the trip while with them.
Kate returned to their home in Miami on October 14, but Liam remained in Buenos Aires, alone after Roger Nores also left, as he waited for his visa to be approved.
Then he spectacularly fell off the wagon. Reports emerged that he had been asked to leave his hotel – the five-star Park Hyatt – for trashing the room and drunkenly shouting at staff.
He checked into the more modest, four-star CasaSur Palermo, from where he called the sex workers on the morning of October 16, 2024.
The women’s statements – on official headed paper from public prosecutor Marcelo Roma’s office – closely mirror each other’s as far as their narrative of how Liam’s last day on earth unfolded.
They claim that Liam called Aldana on WhatsApp after finding her profile on an Argentine escort site. She advertised herself as a ‘sensual girl’ offering ‘yummy sex’, while ‘curvy’ Lucila boasted: ‘I have this booty for you to enjoy fully.’
Aldana found it hard to believe a world-famous pop star was ringing her for sex and demanded he prove it was him.
She told the investigators: ‘Liam contacted me via WhatsApp today (October 16, 2024) around 11am. The whole time he spoke to me in English. He told me who he was and he sent me a video of him. The video wasn’t current, it was him singing.
‘He also sent me pictures of him which he took while he was in bed, before we got there.’
The hotel room where Payne had been staying in Buenos Aires, showing a TV with a broken screen and a half-full glass of champagne
Aldana and Lucila are both single mothers who live with their families in the gritty working-class suburbs surrounding Buenos Aires. Now working as an entrepreneur and a hairdresser respectively, according to their statements, they rented a cheap flat in the city’s downtown area to ‘entertain’ businessmen on their way home from work. Lucila told investigators the pair worked as escorts ‘from time to time’ and had been doing so for around year.
When Aldana told Liam she had a pretty girlfriend with her, the star immediately offered $5,000 for them both to spend the day with him. He gave them the name of his hotel but when Aldana called to verify the information – something she always did for safety reasons – ‘they told me Liam Payne was not there’.
She added: ‘He had given me another name, which I don’t recall. We did a video call for him to show me it really was him and he told me he would send a car.’
Within 15 minutes, a vehicle from the hotel turned up at the flat and took them to CasaSur, arriving there around 11.30am.
Staff at the front desk asked for the women’s ID before allowing them up to Liam’s room– number 310 – which is why police were able to track them down so quickly after the singer’s death.
Aldana said: ‘He was alone in his room. He greeted us warmly and I asked him for payment. We tried to communicate but it was difficult because he only spoke English and I only Spanish.’
They ended up using a translator app on a phone. Liam wanted to pay in dollars using an international bank transfer, something the girls – who wanted cash or credit card payment – were not set up to receive.
Lucila said: ‘He wanted to pay us by wire transfer. Since neither of us had a dollar account, he asked if we had PayPal. We did not and could not download it at the time.
Liam Payne with then-girlfriend Kate Cassidy at a luxury resort in Dubai in January 2023
‘He ordered champagne for us and, for himself, two bottles of Johnny Walker Black Label whisky. We saw that he was doing something like crystal meth with bits of tinfoil.
‘He asked us to get him some drugs but we didn’t know where to get it because we’re not into that. He started scrounging in the tinfoil bits he had. During our time there, we had sex with him – which was consensual sex – only once, and he wore protection.’
The sordid state of the room made it clear Liam had been on a drugs bender. Lucila said: ‘It was a mess, there was tinfoil everywhere with traces of drugs. A drawer was full of it, there was more burned tinfoil on the couch… a lot of clothes thrown around… he smelled of alcohol.
‘A one point, he grabbed his computer and sang a while for us. He showed us the songs he was working on – then he got bad.’
By this time the girls had been in the room for two hours. They again asked for payment. The singer, worth a reported £22 million, offered his gold Rolex. Photographs show him wearing the £30,000 watch as he signed autographs earlier in his trip.
Lucila said: ‘We told him we only wanted money so he took it and smashed it. He told us he didn’t care about the money. And then he broke the TV, he punched it. He made us understand that he could smash everything because he knew he could pay for it.’
Her friend confirmed Liam’s outburst: ‘He removed his watch and flung it against the wall and broke it. He told us he could get ten of those. Then he started talking in English to someone on the phone and refused to give us his wiring information.
‘I told him we were leaving, he got angry and punched the TV three times. He wanted to rip it open.
A photo released by the Buenos Aires Police showing a candle and traces of white powder on the table of the hotel room where Payne had been staying
‘He asked us for cocaine because he’d run out. You could tell he’d been doing cocaine before our arrival. He didn’t do any in front of us, he just drank whisky.’
After his death, it emerged that a psychiatrist had refused to continue treating Liam because he refused to stop drinking while taking the powerful anti-anxiety drug Klonopin. The drug has a powerful sedative effect which is amplified by alcohol and suppresses breathing, which can lead to death.
According to their statements, Liam kicked the girls out of the room but, in his inebriated state, staggered after them and they all went down to the lobby.
En route, Lucila said, they ran into two hotel employees. She told them Liam had smashed the TV and was refusing to pay them.
At the front desk, a member of staff offered to contact Liam’s ‘manager’ – who was, in fact, his friend Roger Nores, who had left his contact details in case of emergency. Roger has been wrongly identified as Liam’s manager and, at one point, was himself facing charges of ‘abandonment’ in connection with the stars death. Those charges were dropped entirely last month.
The man at the front desk told the girls the ‘manager’ had offered them $300, but they refused and showed Liam’s message offering $5,000. As they waited in the lobby, Liam continued to act erratically, pacing around and going up and down to his room repeatedly.
Aldana, who has a child around the same age as Liam’s son Bear, said: ‘Liam came down again. He told me he had a seven-year-old son too, that money didn’t make him happy.’
The women went to a store to get a drink and snacks then returned to the hotel, still hoping to get paid. Lucila realized she had left her make-up bag and phone charger in Liam’s room.
CCTV image of Payne being carried through the hotel lobby shortly before his fatal fall
The front desk called him and he came back down to the lobby and invited the girls to return to room 310 with him.
She recalled: ‘We went up to the room with Liam and the bag was on his coffee table. I went to the bathroom and heard him apologising to Aldana. He got down on his knees and apologised for giving us a bad time.
‘He wanted us to stay in his room.’
Her friend backed up the fact that Liam begged on his knees.
Aldana said: ‘He removed his jacket, got on his knees and apologised to me. He asked us to stay and we told him no. He got angry.’
The women left shortly before 4pm after making sure the front desk had all their details. It is unclear from their statements if they ever got paid.
They learned of Liam’s death when they got back to their flat, as they were scrolling through Instagram on their phones and saw a local TV station’s post that Liam was dead. Initial reports suggested he may have jumped.
Within hours, police knocked at their door and the two women willingly agreed to give their sworn statements. Investigators said they ‘co-operated fully and completely.’
CCTV footage shows that moments after they left Liam’s hotel around 4pm, Roger arrived and spoke to Liam in the lobby. Roger left but Liam continued to act erratically.
At one point a guest heard him yell: ‘I used to be in a boy band that’s why I’m so f***** up!’
He went back to his room, grabbed his laptop and went back to the lobby where he lay on a sofa.
Another witness said Payne became upset, apparently at something on his computer, and flung it to the floor yelling: ‘F*** this s***.’
At 4.54pm CCTV shows shocking footage of Liam, seemingly passed out and possibly convulsing, being carried across the lobby by three hotel staff, who took him into the lift and back to his room.
Several guests later reported hearing crashes and bangs coming from Room 310.
Receptionist Esteban Grassi was so concerned he rang emergency services to say, ‘We have a guest who is high on drugs who is trashing the room.
‘We need you to send someone urgently because, well, I don’t know whether his life may be in danger. He’s in a room with a balcony and, well, we’re afraid he might do something.’
Liam fell to his death at 5.07pm.
Investigators concluded he was so impaired by the deadly cocktail of drugs and alcohol he was likely in a state of semi or total unconsciousness when he fell.
Some have theorised he was trying to climb down from his balcony to ‘escape’ from the hotel without going through the lobby – something he did during his One Direction days to avoid fans.
The UK inquest into his death remains on hold pending the results of an investigation in Argentina.
Two men, waiter Braian Paiz and hotel worker Ezequiel Pereyra, have been charged with supplying the drugs that killed Liam. Both spent months in jail but are out on bail. They deny all charges.
The Mail on Sunday last week learned that prosecutors are in talks with the men’s lawyers in an attempt to work out plea deals which would see both plead guilty to lesser charges in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Liam’s lasting legacy remains his son, Bear, who is being raised away from the spotlight by Cheryl and who will inherit his father’s estate – currently being held in a trust – when he turns 18.
In Argentina, the two sex workers have turned down lucrative offers from American TV stations to speak on camera. There is no suggestion that either have withheld information. Both voluntarily handed over their phones to investigators.
A source said: ‘These girls got caught up in something wilder than they could ever have imagined but they did everything right.
‘They are critical witnesses because they were the only ones there with Liam, right to the end.’
Now, thanks to their sworn statements, we finally have the clearest picture yet of the troubled star’s tumultuous final hours.
