Kate Cassidy, the girlfriend of One Direction member Liam Payne, shared a tribute to the late singer Wednesday, writing in an Instagram post that the two had plans to get engaged and married.
“Liam, I know we’ll be together forever, but not in the way we had planned,” she wrote in a statement, alongside photos of herself with Payne throughout the course of their relationship. “You will always be with me.”
Payne, 31, reportedly had multiple drugs in his system when he fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week. His sudden, tragic death left thousands around the globe in mourning.
In her Instagram post, Cassidy expressed that her “heart is shattered in ways I can’t put into words.”
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“Liam, you had the kindest soul and the most fun-loving spirit,” the statement said in part. “It feels like I’ve lost the best part of myself. I can’t imagine a day without your laughter and love. You brought so much light into my life.”
Since they began dating in 2022, Cassidy, 25, had documented moments from their relationship to her 1 million followers on TikTok and 737,000 followers on Instagram. She had posted videos from Argentina with Payne prior to his death, and had shared a video about her trip back to Florida two days before he died.
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Payne rose to fame in 2010 after being placed in the boy band One Direction with fellow members Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson.
The band released a statement following Payne’s death sharing that the members were “completely devastated.”
“Our thoughts are with his family, his friends, and the fans who loved him alongside us,” Styles, Horan, Malik and Tomlinson said in the statement. “We will miss him terribly. We love you Liam.”
The individual members also shared tributes to Payne on their personal Instagram posts alongside photos of him.
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