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Liam Payne’s girlfriend could have become his wife.
One week after the One Direction singer’s death, Kate Cassidy shared an emotional tribute to Payne that revealed he wanted to marry her before his death.
“A few weeks ago, we sat outside on a beautiful evening manifesting our lives together,” Cassidy, 25, wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, October 23. “I keep your note close, though you told me not to look at it. It said, ‘Me and Kate to marry within a year/engaged & together forever 444.”
The numbers represent an “angel number” that had significance to the couple.
She added, “Liam, I know we’ll be together forever, but not in the way we had planned. You’ll always be with me. I’ve gained a guardian angel.”
This would have been the first marriage for Payne, who shares a 7-year-old son Bear with British X-Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Cassidy, 25, has also never been married.
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The couple began dating in October 2022 after meeting at Ritual, a bar in Charleston, South Carolina.
She detailed their first encounter in a TikTok video uploaded on September 20, saying that she had tried to get off of work the weekend that Payne was in town but was not successful.
“So, as I’m on the way to work, my manager texted me and she was like, ‘Liam Payne from One Direction is here … you’re going to be taking care of him tonight.’ So there he was outside eating his food and I had to approach him and I was, like, pretty much freaking out,” she recalled.
She added, “When I first approached him, I actually got nervous and I like, turned around and went behind the bar … I guess we made awkward eye contact for a second. It’s so funny now, we talk about it, because he literally said to [his friend] Conor, he was like, ‘oh my God, did you see that girl walking over here? Like, I’m not leaving this bar until I get her number.'”
They swapped numbers — albeit Cassidy forgot to enter her international code in his phone — and eventually went on a date together before he was supposed to go back to England.
The couple had been spending time together in Argentina before he fell from his hotel balcony on October 16. Cassidy had left the country just days before his death after their days-long adventure turned into a two-week trip.
It was later confirmed in an autopsy report that Payne died from “multiple trauma” and “internal and external hemorrhage” sustained from his fall.
He was also found with pink cocaine in his system.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
