In an interview with The Sun published on Wednesday, Feb. 5, Liam Payne‘s girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, talked about why she left Argentina four days before the One Direction singer’s death and how she’s been coping with the grief.

“I think about Liam every second of every day,” she said. “It still doesn’t feel fully real for me that he’s not here. Sometimes I’ll wake up and it’s a reality I have to face for the rest of my life.”

Liam died on Oct. 16, 2024, after falling from the third floor of his hotel room in Argentina. He was 31.

“Originally, we thought we were going to be in Argentina for a week, give or take. A little less, a little more,” said Kate. “And after two weeks … we had a responsibility, we had our dog and obviously I never would have thought this event would have occurred.”

Kate said that she remembered Liam being in “a good headspace” when she left Argentina.

“If I could see into the future, I would have never left Argentina but unfortunately, I do have — we did have our own separate lives. This wasn’t the first time we traveled separately,” she added.

Kate was at the home she shared with Liam in Florida when one of his friends called to tell her of his death. She added that she can’t remember what was said in the call because it’s “blacked out” from her memory.

“I didn’t want to believe it at first at all,” Kate said. “I genuinely thought it was just a rumor. Or some made-up thing that somebody made up to get views online. And instantly I just had a bad feeling in my gut. I was like, ‘Why would somebody make this up?”

Kate said her last text message to Liam read, “I can’t wait for you to come home.”

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