One Direction’s Liam Payne falls to death at Argentina hotel

British singer Liam Payne, a former member of the bestselling pop group One Direction, died Wednesday aged 31 after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentine police said.

“Liam James Payne, composer and guitarist, former member of the band One Direction, died today after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Palermo,” a police statement said.

Pablo Policicchio, the spokesman for the Security Ministry of Buenos Aires municipality, said in a statement that Payne “had thrown himself from the balcony of his room”.

He said police were dispatched to the hotel in response to an emergency call about an “aggressive man who could be under the influence of drugs or alcohol”. Arriving police heard a thud and found Payne’s body in the hotel courtyard, Policicchio said.

The singer had suffered “very serious injuries incompatible with life as a result of his fall”, the head of the city’s SAME emergency medical service, Alberto Crescenti, told local television, adding “there was no possibility of resuscitation”.

Crescenti said emergency personnel rushed to the Casa Sur hotel in the capital’s Palermo neighbourhood after an emergency call was made at 5.04pm. They arrived seven minutes later and “verified the death of this man, who we later learned was a singer.”