Liam Payne’s Body Sent for Autopsy as Authorities Try to Determine What Led to Fatal Hotel Fall

Liam Payne, who rose to global fame as a member of the British pop band One Direction, has died aged 31 after falling from a hotel balcony in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina on Wednesday night.

The singer died after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Argentina, officials said. It’s unclear if authorities suspect foul play in Liam Payne’s death.

Pablo Policicchio, the spokesperson for the Security Ministry of Buenos Aires municipality, said in a statement to the Associated Press that police were dispatched to the hotel in response to an emergency call about an “aggressive man who could be under the influence of drugs or alcohol”.

Authorities say they will conduct an autopsy and investigate the circumstances surrounding his death and if there were any contributing factors.

His friends and millions of fans are already paying tribute to the 31-year-old, who police say fell from a third-floor hotel balcony. He is survived by his parents, his two older sisters, and his seven-year-old son, Bear, who he welcomed in 2017 with ex-partner Cheryl Cole.

Born on August 29, 1993, in Wolverhampton, England, Payne rose to fame while competing on season five of "The X Factor" in 2008 in front of judges Simon Cowell, Cole, Dannii Minogue, and Louis Walsh.

He was drawn to singers such as Usher and Justin Timberlake. Payne remembered his childhood as a happy one: his father, Geoff, worked as a fitter, while his mother, Karen, was a nursery nurse.

After the audition stages, Cowell grouped Payne with Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik. One Direction became one of the best-selling boy bands ever before going on an indefinite hiatus in 2016.

Tributes from across the music industry have quickly poured in for Payne, with tearful fans gathered outside the hotel to mourn the death of the singer with some lighting candles, singing One Direction songs, or holding moments of silence.

While none of his former One Direction members have spoken out yet, Styles’s mother posted a broken heart emoji on Instagram with the caption, “Just a boy.”

Earlier this month, Payne shared a Snapchat saying he was traveling to Argentina in part to see his former bandmate Niall Horan play a show there. 

“It’s been a while since me and Niall have spoken,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about and I would like to square up a couple of things with the boy. No bad vibes or nothing like that but we just need to talk.”