One of the suspects in the investigation into the death of Liam Payne broke his silence over the weekend in an interview with an Argentinian media outlet. Three people were detained last week in connection with Payne’s death on Oct. 16 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the One Direction singer and solo star died after falling from a third-floor balcony of a hotel.
Speaking to journalist Guillermo Panizza for Telefe Noticias, 24-year-old waiter Braian Nahuel Paiz admitted to partying with Payne, but denied supplying the 31-year-old singer drugs; to date, Argentinian authorities have not revealed the names of any of the suspects that have been detained and Billboard has not been able to independently confirm that Paiz was one of them.
Paiz said he met Payne twice before the singer’s death, but insisted, “I never supplied Liam with drugs. Liam’s first contact with me was at my place of work.” He said they swapped info and then got back together later that night, with the report including pictures of the two men together. “We got together there and he showed me some of the music he was going to bring out. I’ve heard people saying he was taking drugs, but the truth is that when he got to the restaurant where I was working he was already under the effects of drugs and he didn’t actually eat anything.” Paiz said the two men communicated via Payne’s secret Instagram account.
When the two men got together a second time at Payne’s hotel on Oct. 13, Paiz — who reportedly has lost his job in the wake of the investigation — claimed that he spent the night partying at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel, alleging that the singer was doing cocaine while Paiz smoked pot. “We took drugs together, but I never took drugs to him or accepted any money,” said Paiz, who added that his home has been searched in the probe, but that he has not yet been questioned by investigators.
Paiz also said he doesn’t know who the other two unnamed suspects are and that he does not know what happened to Payne after he left the hotel room. Click here to watch the interview in Spanish.
Last week, officials in Buenos Aires released Payne’s body to his family for repatriation to the U.K. and a press release from the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s office No. 14 revealed the final results of toxicology tests on the singer. According to a translated copy of the report, in the 72 hours before Payne died after falling from a three-story hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he had “alcohol, cocaine and prescription antidepressants” in his system.
The results of the autopsy concluded that Payne’s death was caused by “‘multiple trauma’ and ‘internal and external hemorrhage,’ the result of the fall the musician suffered from the balcony of the third-floor room of the hotel in the Palermo neighborhood where he was staying.”
Additional reports concluded that the injures Payne sustained were caused by a fall at the hotel from a height and that “self-harm of any kind and/or physical intervention by third parties were ruled out.” Authorities also reported that Payne did not adopt a “reflex posture” to protect himself from the fall, which led to the conclusion that he “may have fallen in a state of semi- or total unconsciousness.”
The three people detained so far were charged with abandonment leading to death and the supply and facilitation of narcotics.