Liam Payne’s heartbroken girlfriend on Wednesday revealed that the couple had planned to marry next year, as she paid tribute to her late pop star boyfriend.
Kate Cassidy, 25, shared photographs taken during the pair’s two-year relationship, along with a moving message dedicated to her ‘best friend, the love of my life’.
She said the couple had written notes to each other mapping out their future together in the weeks before Payne, 31, fell 45 feet to his death from a Buenos Aires hotel balcony last Wednesday.
The American influencer wrote that her heart is ‘shattered’, spoke lovingly of the former One Direction star’s ‘contagious’ energy, and admitted that she is struggling to ‘figure out how to live’ without the father of one.
In one note, which Payne asked Ms Cassidy not to open, he wrote of his hope that they would marry within the year and be ‘together for ever’.
On Instagram Ms Cassidy shared photos of their life together, posing in the snow, wearing Minnie Mouse ears at Disneyland and playing with their puppy Nala.
She told her 710,000 followers: ‘A few weeks ago, we sat outside on a beautiful evening manifesting our lives together.
‘I keep your note close, even though you told me not to look at it.
‘It said, “Me and Kate to marry within a year/engaged and together for ever 444”.’ The number 444 comes from numerology, which is big on Tiktok, and means you are on the right path in life.
She added: ‘Liam, I know we’ll be together for ever, but not in the way we had planned. You’ll always be with me. I’ve gained a guardian angel.
‘I will love you for the rest of my life and beyond, carrying our dreams and memories with me everywhere I go.’
Ms Cassidy left Argentina two days before Payne’s death in Buenos Aires, where they had originally flown to watch his former bandmate Niall Horan’s concert on October 4.
But on Wednesday night the New York Post quoted a ‘friend’ of Ms Cassidy who said she felt like she was in a ‘hostage situation’ with Payne in Argentina before she returned home to Miami.
In a TikTok social media post before Payne’s death, Ms Cassidy revealed she was only planning to stay in South America for a few days but extended the trip to more than two weeks. The friend claimed Ms Cassidy worried about Payne being left on his own. They said: ‘She can’t leave, or else who knows what will happen? And if she leaves, what will he do? But she has other responsibilities, other things that she’s supposed to be doing. So she finally had to make a decision…
‘They’re in Argentina and it’s like a hostage situation. So she tells him she wants to leave, this is after a week. He begs her to stay.’
Payne fell from the third floor of the CasaSur Palermo hotel and a post-mortem examination determined he died of multiple traumas and ‘internal and external haemorrhage’ as a result of the fall. Preliminary results from toxicology tests have found traces of cocaine, benzodiazepine, crack cocaine and ‘pink cocaine’, which is a combination of methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA.
On Wednesday night, the Daily Mirror reported Payne was in talks to tour next year despite concerns from his friends. A source said: ‘When it emerged that Liam had been talking to new people about a series of dates, there was a great deal of unease among his friends. Liam had split from his management about six months ago, and it would not have been something they would have recommended… Being on the road can be incredibly demanding and Liam wasn’t in the best place mentally.’
Ms Cassidy was seen in public for the first time since Payne’s death this weekend, picking up dog food for their puppy.
