Former ‘One Direction’ star Liam Payne dead at 31

Liam Payne, a former member of British boy band One Direction, has died after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Argentina, according to local police. He was 31 years old.

Police in Buenos Aires, the country’s capital, said they received a 911 call from the Casa Sur Palermo hotel at 5:04 p.m. on Wednesday, reporting an “aggressive man” suspected of being under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

A medical team arrived at the scene at 5:11 p.m. and found Payne suffering from “very serious injuries,” according to Alberto Crescenti, the head of the ambulance service SAME. Payne was pronounced dead at the scene.

“We have to wait for the autopsy, but the team saw that he apparently had a fracture at the base of the skull and very serious injuries,” Crescenti said, according to local media.

Officials said Payne’s body was found in the hotel’s inner courtyard after falling from a third-floor balcony. The exact circumstances of the fall were not immediately clear.

When officers entered Payne’s hotel room, they found drugs, paraphernalia to consume them, and damage to a television and other furniture. There were also remains of a candle and aluminium foil in the room’s bathtub.

Payne’s body was removed from the hotel on Wednesday night and taken to a facility where an autopsy will be carried out in the near future. Tests will determine whether the singer was under the influence drugs.

Liam Payne made his debut as a singer when he auditioned for “The X Factor” in 2008, when he was just 14 years old. While Payne was quickly eliminated, one of the judges – Simon Cowell – encouraged him to come back in two years.

When he auditioned a second time in 2010, Payne was put together with four other boys to form One Direction, which went on to become one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. The group went on an indefinite hiatus in 2016.