British singer Liam Payne, a former member of best-selling pop group One Direction, died Wednesday aged 31 after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires, police and rescuers said.
Minutes after the news broke, distraught fans — most in their 20s and 30s — and onlookers gathered near the scene in the Argentine capital, where medical teams were still at work.
“The news hit me hard,” fan Pilar Bilik, 27, said on the scene.
A police statement announced that “Liam James Payne, composer and guitarist, former member of the band One Direction, died today after falling from the third floor of a hotel.”
The singer had suffered “very serious injuries incompatible with life as a result of his fall,” the head of the city’s SAME emergency medical service, Alberto Crescenti, told local television, adding “there was no possibility of resuscitation.”
Crescenti said emergency personnel rushed to the Casa Sur hotel in the city’s Palermo neighborhood after an emergency call was made at 17:04 PM local time (2004 GMT).
They arrived seven minutes later and “verified the death of this man, who we later learnt was a singer.”
The police statement said the emergency call was made to report “an aggressive man who may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”
Payne appeared to have suffered a fracture at the base of his skull from the fall Crescenti said was “about 13 or 14 meters” (about 43-46 feet).
– ‘Part of adolescence lost’ –
British-Irish boy band sensation One Direction emerged in 2010 when then-teenagers Payne, Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik appeared on British television contest “The X Factor.”
The band went on to release an album of radio-ready pop each year in time for the holiday shopping season and became one of the highest-grossing live acts in the world.
Malik left in 2015. The group brought out another album without him, subsequently announcing it was on an indefinite hiatus, but not splitting up.
Singer-songwriter Payne started working on a solo album in 2016, following in the footsteps of other band members.
He had attended a concert by former band mate Horan in Buenos Aires on October 2, according to Billboard magazine.
“I feel like it’s a part of adolescence lost,” fan Lena Duek, 21, said outside the hotel, adding she had been hoping for the band, which accompanied her teen years, to reunite.
“I’m in shock, I can’t believe it. I live five blocks away and thought I had to be here,” said another fan Martina Di Lalla, 23.
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