Video claiming to show Liam Payne fall from hotel is from unrelated incident
Video is old and shows an unrelated incident in Mexico City over a year earlier
CLAIM
Videos circulating on social media after news emerged of Liam Payne's death in Argentina purported to show his fall from a hotel in Buenos Aires.
BACKGROUND
Former One Direction singer Liam Payne died on Wednesday, October 16, after he fell from the third storey of a hotel in Buenos Aires.
The 31-year-old pop star's death was confirmed by local police soon after the incident happened. He dropped into a courtyard from a balcony at the Casa Sur Hotel in the Palermo neighbourhood of the Argentinian capital.
Police had already been called to the hotel by the hotel manager, who had become concerned for Payne's welfare. He was a guest at the hotel at the time.
The transcript of the call between the hotel desk manager and the 9-1-1 operator was released and carried in international news reports early on October 17.
In it, the hotel manager says: "We have a guest drunk on drugs and alcohol. When he is conscious, he is breaking everything in the room."
The hotel manager adds: "Send someone with urgency because I don't know if the guest's life is in danger because he is in a room with balcony, and we are afraid he could do something that threatens life."
The singer's death was announced soon after the incident, with news reports breaking the story within an hour of his last social media posts.
Images purporting to show damage and evidence of drug use in the hotel room were shared on social media in the immediate aftermath of the news, as well as footage that purported to show Payne's fall to his death.
After the footage emerged, it was widely shared across multiple platforms. Some accounts, like that of X user @ttvfofana_, shared the video multiple times despite replies suggesting the video was not genuine.
Several posts containing the video were viewed hundreds of thousands of times, according to post statistics on X.
METHOD
There are multiple ways we can check the veracity of this clip. First, it was important to get a view of the hotel where police said the singer fell.
The Casa Sur hotel can be seen on Google Street View. The hotel’s exterior is modern, with balconies running along the lower four floors of the building.
This lines up with the police statement, which said the singer fell from a balcony. The widely shared video shows a man falling from a window.
Images from the scene published in media outlets including TMZ showed a police tent set up in a courtyard area to the rear of the hotel. That side of the hotel also has balconies stretching the length of the building, as can be seen in satellite imagery and photos on the hotel’s Google and TripAdvisor review pages.
Celebrity tabloid outlet TMZ published images immediately after the death was announced, described as being cropped versions of an image of his body after the fall.
There was widespread backlash to TMZ’s publication of the graphic images soon after Payne’s death. The images, which were cropped to show his recognisable tattoos, showed that he was wearing a white T-shirt and dark green jeans.
The images were later deleted from the TMZ article amid the backlash.
The footage of the man falling from a window, seemingly in a white T-shirt and underwear, is from an incident in 2023 in Mexico City.
This news article covered the story and included a screenshot from the same video, which described how the man fell from his bedroom window after a fire broke out in his apartment.
The man in that incident survived and was taken to hospital for treatment of injuries, according to the news article from that time.
From this analysis, we can confirm the video is old and shows an unrelated incident.
RATING
The video purporting to show Liam Payne’s fall from a Buenos Aires hotel is old and shows an unrelated incident in Mexico City over a year earlier.
SOURCES
Sky News. (2024). Liam Payne dies latest: Transcript of 911 call released after former One Direction singer’s death – ‘send someone with urgency’. [online] [Accessed 17 Oct. 2024].
Heching, D., Castro, M., Torres, M. and Rosenbloom, A. (2024). Liam Payne, former One Direction member, dead at 31. [online] CNN. [Accessed 17 Oct. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: liam’s payne hotel room + his death. [Accessed 17 Oct. 2024].
Facebook.com. (2023). Facebook. [online] Available at: liam payne video | liam payne fall video… [Accessed 17 Oct. 2024].
Google Earth. (2024). Available here. [Accessed 17 Oct. 2024].
Staff, TMZ. (2024). Liam Payne Dead at 31 After Fall from Buenos Aires Hotel Room. [online] TMZ. [Accessed 17 Oct. 2024].
Abramovitch, S. (2024). TMZ Posts, Then Removes, Liam Payne Death Photos After Backlash. [online] The Hollywood Reporter. [Accessed 17 Oct. 2024].
AN (2023). Video | Hombre cae del tercer piso tras incendio en su departamento en CDMX. [online] Aristegui Noticias. [Accessed 17 Oct. 2024].