Grab your tissues because Liam Payne’s girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, sat down for her first interview almost four months after the singer’s unexpected death in October 2024. On Feb. 5, Cassidy sat down for an exclusive interview with The Sun, sharing very emotional, vulnerable details of her and Payne’s final days together.
The singer’s death came as a major shock after TMZ broke the news that the former One Direction member had tragically fallen to his death from his hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina. During her interview, Cassidy said “it still doesn’t feel fully real for me that he’s not here,” which rings true not only to her, but many fans.
During the interview, Cassidy not only reflected on her time with Payne — specifically their finals days — but also shared how she’s navigating her grief, something many people (myself included) have wondered about since the incident.
Cassidy began the interview by opening up with her general feelings about the singer’s death, sharing that “nights can be the hardest as it’s quiet and dark and alone.” She went on to reveal how she has been actively seeking therapy as a way to deal with her grief. “I’ve been seeing therapy, which has been super helpful, and I would recommend that to anybody,” she said. She also revealed she’s been seeing a grief counselor.
But despite the work she’s been doing in therapy, Cassidy admitted that there are still days she gets emotional. “It’s still so raw for me,” she said. “It’s been almost four months and sometimes it feels like it’s been forever ago and sometimes it feels like it was just last week. Every day is a sad day for me.” Here’s everything else she shared in the interview.
CASSIDY SHARES DETAILS SURROUNDING HER EXPERIENCE HEARING THE NEWS.
Just four days before Payne’s death, Cassidy had traveled back to Miami from Argentina to take care of some prior commitments. She shared that she and Payne had originally planned their trip to last about a week or less but once it hit two weeks, she had to take care of their dog. Since she and the singer had often left each other to travel, Cassidy “never would have thought that this would have happened.”
She then opened up about the moment she found out about Payne’s death. “I was in our home alone with our dog, scrolling on TikTok right before I got a phone call from one of Liam’s friends,” Cassidy said. “I didn’t believe it at first and genuinely had thought it was just a rumor or some made-up thing that someone made up just to get views online. Instantly, I had a bad feeling in my gut like ‘Why would somebody make this up’ and I blacked out, I felt numb and couldn’t believe it.”
Cassidy then called Payne and everyone in their circle to try to understand what was really going on. When she finally learned the truth, Cassidy was sitting on the couch with her mom and realized, “‘I’m never going to see him again’ and we’re not going to be in this house together.”
If she could, Cassidy would’ve stayed in Argentina longer. “We did have our own separate lives,” she said. “This wasn’t the first time we traveled separately together. We would quite often here and there in the past so I would’ve never thought this would happen.”
HER LAST TEXT TO LIAM.
Upon returning home to take care of their rescue dog, Nala, Cassidy shared that she had decided to put up Halloween decorations in her and Payne’s newly shared home, anticipating his return. She revealed that her last words to him were in a text. “‘I can’t wait for you to get home and for you, me, and Nala to be a family again. I can’t wait for you to see the house.’ Because he knew I was decorating it,” she said. “So that’s the last message I [sent] him.”
LIAM’S FUNERAL.
On Nov. 20, 2024, a month after Payne’s death, Cassidy attended his funeral with her mother and some friends. “It was so great to have all of those people that I loved and Liam loved by my side that day,” she said.
Fueled by her love, Cassidy recalled how “she stuck with Liam through thick and thin,” something she credited to the love she had for him. “I think love is so optimistic and you just hope that everything will work out between you and everything at the end will work out.”