Several fans of Liam Payne’s career met him in Buenos Aires in the weeks preceding his tragic and sudden death at age 31.
“I met him on September 30th at the hotel’s door. I mean, I was passing by,” Noelia Verón, who has been a fan of Payne’s career since she was a teenager, exclusively recalled to Us Weekly on Friday, October 18. “I waited there for a while to take a picture of him because I couldn’t believe it. He came closer to the fans, he took pictures.”
Verón, 29, added, “We shared a moment. In my case I [jokingly] told him that I had escaped from the [school building]; I had abandoned the class and he made a joke about it, like, ‘I couldn’t believe it’ [and asked] what kind of class I was doing, what I was studying.”
According to Verón, her experience with the One Direction alum was “pretty cool.”
Fans Hold Vigil Outside Argentina Hotel After Liam Payne’s Death
“He looked good,” she said. “The relationship with the fans was unique. He took the time to greet each one of them, to take a picture, to be there, to share. He lived it all with a lot of emotion, everything that happened on that September 30th.”
Payne and girlfriend Kate Cassidy visited Argentina throughout September and October, during which they even caught his former bandmate Niall Horan’s solo concert. News broke on Wednesday, October 16, that Payne fell to his death from a third-floor hotel balcony. He had suffered multiple serious injuries, including “internal and external hemorrhage.” (Cassidy left town several days earlier, according to a social media video.)
Fellow fan Luana Matzkin also ran into Payne earlier this month while out with her sister.
“It was crazy. We arrived running, knowing that he was possibly going to leave at that time,” Matzkin recalled to Us in a separate conversation on Friday. “I was there taking pictures and I was already shaking since I saw him from afar. It was crazy to have him up close.”
One Direction Star Liam Payne Dead at 31 After Fall in Argentina
She added that the singer seemed “very happy” to her. “He stayed for an hour or more taking pictures with all the fans who were there.”
Matzkin added that there were “more than 100” fans waiting to meet Payne, who made sure to greet everyone.
“He stayed taking pictures with everyone, listening to everyone, hugging them,” she told Us. “He was very happy, he was laughing, he talked to his girlfriend, he talked to his friend. They were just waiting to go to dinner later and he was still taking pictures.”
For Matzkin, it was “a dream” to meet Payne in person.
“For me, he is an angel, an incredible person,” she gushed. “As a little girl, it was always something unattainable, something that I could only think about. And I always thought, ‘If I meet him, what can I tell him?’ … I couldn’t tell him anything. I asked him to sign an autograph, but I couldn’t tell him anything about everything I had thought.”
Liam Payne Fans Grieve Outside Hotel Where He Died: ‘Still in Shock’
After both Verón and Matzkin heard about Payne’s death, they traveled to the CasaSur Palermo Hotel where he died.
“Of course, I knew it was real, [but] it’s like the world fell to me, the person I had been looking at for more than 10 years is no longer there,” Matzkin reflected on Friday.
Matzkin and her sister, Kiara, were driven to the hotel by their mother, Romina Mohadeb, who said Payne’s death was “a very important loss for them.”
“It’s their childhood, it’s part of their life, it’s their passion,” Mohadeb told Us.
Payne is survived by his parents, two older sisters and 7-year-old son Bear, whom he shared with ex Cheryl Cole. Payne’s father, Geoff, traveled to Argentina on Friday alongside former One Direction tour manager Paul Higgins.
With reporting by Luciana Arias