Liam Payne’s alleged drug dealer breaks his silence on the singer’s recent death, denying fault and claiming the two had shared an ‘intimate’ night.
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.
