An Argentine waiter accused of supplying Liam Payne the drugs that led to his fatal fall from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires is speaking out for the first time.
Braian Nahuel Paiz, 24, is one of three suspects charged last week for their alleged involvement in the former One Direction member’s Oct. 16 death. Charges included abandonment of a person followed by death, and supply and facilitation of narcotics, per a Nov. 7 statement from the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office of Argentina.
But while Paiz in a Friday interview with Telefe Noticias admitted to two hotel meetings with Payne prior to the singer’s death, he insisted he never supplied the 31-year-old with drugs or accepted any money from him.
Paiz first met Payne on Oct. 2, he told the outlet, when the singer was dining with girlfriend Kate Cassidy and two others at the Puerto Madero restaurant where Paiz worked. Payne seemed to already be under the influence of drugs at that point and didn’t eat anything, Paiz said.
At the restaurant, Paiz continued, Payne asked him for his contact details: “I gave him my Instagram, and then he sent me messages, because he wanted to do drugs, I think he was going to a concert or something.”
That night, Payne attended former bandmate Niall Horan’s show at the Movistar Arena, where the two allegedly made amends after not being in contact for some time.
“We swapped details and saw each other later that night. It was all normal,” Paiz said, adding that Payne fetched him from downstairs at the Park Hyatt Palermo after he got lost. In the singer’s hotel room, they did whiskey shots while Payne showed Paiz some music he was gearing up to release.
Paiz claimed that he and Payne, who allegedly used a fake Instagram account, stayed in contact for several days before meeting up a second time on Oct. 13 — this time at the CasaSur hotel, where Payne later fell to his death.
“We spent the night, we did drugs together and something intimate happened,” Paiz said, noting that while he stuck to weed, Payne was allegedly doing cocaine. “I saw him acting normal, he wasn’t aggressive at all, he was really sweet. He asked me if I was OK.”
When Paiz left that night, he said, Payne again offered him money as well as clothes “so people knew that I was with him,” but he refused both. “I don’t know why I didn’t take them, I just didn’t want to take anything from him.”
Paiz said Payne asked him to hang out a third time — even showing up at his home — but the waiter said he had to work: “He said, ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure,’ and that’s the last time I saw him.”
As for Payne’s accident, Paiz said the singer was very “paranoid” days before his death, even going to the extreme of allegedly preventing people from entering his room. Left alone, he might have snapped, Paiz said.
Paiz denied knowing the other two suspects charged in Payne’s death. One of them, Rogelio “Roger” Nores, last week denied abandoning Payne before his death, telling Daily Mail he “could have never imagined something like this would happen.”
The third suspect, who has been named locally as hotel worker Ezequiel David Pereyra, has yet to issue a public comment.
According to last week’s statement from the prosecutor’s office, officials charged the three suspects after carrying out nine raids and hearing “several dozen” testimonies from people including hotel staff, Payne’s family and friends, medical professionals and other experts.
Police analysts also reviewed more than 800 hours’ worth of surveillance footage from in and around the hotel, combed through the contents of Payne’s phone (including calls and messages across various messaging and social media apps) and assessed the registry of guests and the singer’s orders from the hotel’s bar and restaurant to understand his drinking and eating habits, the statement said.
The investigation into Payne’s death is ongoing, and the prosecution said it was considering ruling out the possibility of suicide, because “in the state [Payne] was going through, he did not know what he was doing nor could he understand it.”
In October, officials determined Payne died from multiple traumas and internal and external bleeding caused by the fall. He “did not adopt a reflexive posture to protect himself and … he may have fallen in a state of semi- or total unconsciousness,” officials said last month.
Payne’s body was delivered to his father, Geoff Payne, earlier this month after an autopsy including several toxicology tests revealed Payne had traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his system in the moments before his death. Funeral arrangements are underway in Payne’s home country of England.
Meanwhile, singer Rita Ora paid tribute to Payne, her collaborator on the 2018 song “For You (Fifty Shades Freed),” while hosting the MTV Europe Music Awards, which took place Sunday in Manchester, England.
“I just want to take a moment to remember someone that was very, very dear to us. We lost him recently, and he was a big part of the MTV world and my world, and I think a lot of yours at home and everybody in here tonight,” Ora said.
“He had the biggest heart and was always the first person to offer help in any way that he could,” she said, holding back tears. “He brought so much joy to every room he walked into, and he left such a mark on this world.”
Times staffers Alexandra Del Rosario and Angie Orellana Hernandez contributed to this report.
