LIAM Payne’s sister has paid an emotional tribute on the anniversary of the late star’s funeral.
Pop star Liam tragically died after falling from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires in October last year.
Ruth posted an emotional tribute to her brother, one year on from his funeral – with an early image of the siblings together.
Alongside the post, Ruth wrote: “A year ago today, the hardest goodbye I’ll ever have, a funeral I should never have had to plan and every day since, I should have never had to live without him.
“Missing him now is part of breathing, it doesn’t get easier, that’s just a lie to make it feel better: Infinite love, infinite loss.”
Ruth’s post comes after she shared another tribute on the one year anniversary of Liam’s death.
In an open letter to him, a devastated Ruth wrote: “I underestimated grief, woah, did I underestimate it. I am paralysed by it daily.
“I thought I had felt it before but I know the losses before you were just intense sadness, you are the loss of my life, the one person who l will miss at every single occasion in my life.
“I’d taken for granted that my little brother would be there through life.
“You shouldn’t have died.”
Ruth also revealed she’s been having a recurring nightmare that places her in Liam’s hotel room moments before his death on that fateful night.
She said, in it, Liam “can’t hear me screaming for you, my brain is locked on your last minutes on this earth, the unaccounted minutes, the minutes I will never have the answers to, the minutes that changed everything.”
Such is the loss, Ruth said that the life of the Payne family has been “extinguished” and is “impossible to mend”.
She continued: “You died which is something that happened, but your absence is something that happens to me everyday before I even open my eyes.”
In gut-wrenching paragraphs she details how she’d love to spend just five more minutes with him and the things she would tell him, from catching up on plans, to listening to the birds and swapping jokes.
Liam’s Last Days
By Scarlet Howes
SEPTEMBER 20: Liam and his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, arrive in Argentina for a five-day holiday.
OCTOBER 2: The star goes to see ex-bandmate Niall Horan while he is on tour, telling fans on Snapchat: “It’s been a while since me and Niall have spoken. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
OCTOBER 12: Kate flies back home to Florida after two weeks away, leaving Liam in Argentina.
She tells her followers on TikTok: “Love South America, but I hate staying in one place for too long and we were supposed to be there for five days, turned into two weeks and I was just like, ‘I need to go home’.”
OCTOBER 13: Liam checks into the CasaSur Palermo Hotel alone three days before he died. He was reportedly asked to leave his previous hotel.
OCTOBER 15: Hours before his death, he spends some time with Aldana Serrano, 31, and Lucila Goitea, 27, who arrived at the hotel at about 11.30am local time and left at 4pm, just one hour before he died.
At about 5pm, Liam is said to have been arguing over money with a mystery woman in the lobby, before falling 45ft and landing in the inner courtyard of the hotel.
Ending her letter to Liam, she asks people to remember that there is a family at the heart of the story who have lost someone very dear to them.
She says: “Whilst I am still on my knees struggling to regain balance since my world burned down and every time I try to take a step, something comes and sets fire to all the progress I thought I had made in my mind, in trying to understand where or why Liam isn’t here helping me through this.
“Everyone only seems interested in the public side of this, some sadly seem more interested in the fame they can gain off this, but on the human side people need to remember when they speak, there is a son without his Dad, parents without their child and I am lost without my brother.
“Love always Liam, in every lifetime.”
Liam died shortly after 5pm on October 16, 2024 when he fell from his hotel balcony.
Liam, who was the dad of seven-year-old Bear, shared a post on Snapchat only minutes before his death and showed him and his girlfriend Kate Cassidy looking into a mirror.
The singer-songwriter was staying at Hotel CasaSur in the neighbourhood of Palermo.
Liam had flown to Argentina with girlfriend Kate Cassidy for a five-day holiday, to see his ex-1D bandmate Niall Horan in concert.
Liam extended the trip but Kate returned home to the US.
It is claimed Liam then turned to drink and drugs.
An autopsy confirmed he died from multiple trauma and internal and external bleeding.
A toxicology report revealed alcohol, cocaine and an antidepressant, which would have left him severely impaired.
Ezequiel David Pereyra — who is awaiting trial for allegedly selling the singer cocaine — recently spoke out for the first time from jail.
Pereyra, 22 — locked up in Marcos Paz jail two hours from the capital — claims hotel bosses turned a blind eye to all of Liam’s drug use in October 2024.
He said: “They had him in an isolated bunker and let him do anything he wanted including drugs in the room, and in public areas of the hotel.
“Bosses said he was making them too much money — triple the money.
“But I think the biggest mistake was not calling an ambulance when Payne passed out in the lobby.
“If the hotel had acted differently Liam could have been saved.
“They lifted him by his arms and legs and carried him to the room via the elevator. He should have been kept where he was and an ambulance called.
“But because that day they had many foreign guests checking in they decided to take him to the room in the condition he was in.
“After that they called police instead of an ambulance. They made the call only after leaving him in the room alone. By the time they were making the call it was already too late.
“What happened was very sad. Liam’s death was truly tragic and could have been prevented.”