Hotel employee charged in connection to Liam Payne’s death denies supplying singer with drugs, details their alleged encounter

The CasaSur Palermo Hotel employee who is being charged in connection to Liam Payne’s death has denied supplying the late singer with drugs.

Braian Nahuel Paiz, a former waiter at one of the hotel restaurants, has been identified by Argentine authorities as a person allegedly involved in Payne’s death. He spoke to news outlet Telefe Noticias over the weekend to share his alleged side of the story.

When asked if he supplied Payne with drugs before his death, Paiz claimed to the outlet, “The truth is that I didn’t supply Liam with drugs.”

He then claimed that they met at the restaurant he was working at on Oct. 2 and they “exchanged contact information.” Paiz said that he met Payne while he was dining with his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, and two other people.

“We saw each other that night, it was all normal,” he continued. “He fetched me downstairs [at the Park Hyatt Palermo] because I got lost and I didn’t know how to get around and he went to get me.”

When Payne and Cassidy first arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, they stayed at the Park Hyatt Palermo Hotel. However, once Cassidy left for Florida two weeks later, the singer checked into CasaSur by himself.

The former hotel employee detailed that they went to his room and Payne showed him some of the music he was about to release. They also had some “shots of Whiskey.”

“They’re saying that he was not under the influence before getting to [CasaSur] but the reality is that he was already on drugs. In fact, he didn’t eat,” he further claimed about their first hangout, which supposedly lasted an hour and a half.

Paiz went on to claim that it was then that Payne — who had been open about his struggles with addiction — asked him for a drug dealer’s contact because he wanted to get more drugs before a concert. Paiz allegedly sent the contact via Instagram.

Payne and Cassidy had gone to his former One Direction bandmate Niall Horan’s concert that night in Buenos Aires. Following the concert, Payne and Horan made amends after not having contact for a while.

Paiz claimed he and Payne, who allegedly had a fake Instagram, stayed in contact via messages for several days before agreeing to meet up a second time on Oct. 13.

“We spent the night, we did drugs together and something intimate happened,” he claimed, saying that while he stuck to weed, Payne was allegedly doing cocaine.

“I saw him acting normal, he wasn’t aggressive at all, he was really sweet. He asked me if I was OK,” he alleged, before noting that he didn’t delete their messages.

When asked what he thinks happened before the singer fell off the balcony on Oct. 16, he suggested that Payne was left alone. He also claimed Payne was very “scared” and “paranoid” days before his death, even going to the extreme of allegedly preventing people from entering his room.

Paiz further insisted that he did not bring any drugs to Payne but that they did do them “together.” He also insisted that Payne wanted to pay him but he didn’t accept any money.

“When I left, [Payne] wanted to give me some clothes so people knew we had been together but I didn’t accept it. I left it behind the room’s TV. It was gray joggers and a T-shirt. I don’t know why I didn’t take them, I just didn’t want to take anything,” he claimed.

Paiz also claimed that Payne wanted to hang out with him a third time and even showed up at his home, but he rejected him because he had to work.

“I don’t know how he even got into my home,” he claimed. “He got back into his taxi.”

He further claimed that Payne messaged him after their last meeting but didn’t respond because he was working.

Paiz denied knowing any of the other people charged in Payne’s death. However, he did confirm that when he visited Payne in his room, he saw the soap box, which authorities believe was used to transport drugs.

On Oct. 16, Payne fell to his death from the balcony of his third-story room in CasaSur. He was 31.

It was determined that he suffered a cranial fracture, as well as internal and external bleeding caused by 25 lesions.

A toxicology report also revealed that Payne was under the influence of drugs at the time of his death — including an anti-depressant, cocaine and pink cocaine — which caused him to pass out and fall off the balcony.

His death was not ruled a suicide.

Since then, Paiz and a drug dealer have been charged with supplying Payne with drugs.

A third, Payne’s “friend” Rogelio “Roger” Nores, was charged with abandonment for allegedly not telling the singer’s family that he had relapsed. He also reportedly did not respond to police calls when the singer died.

Just like Paiz, Nores has tried to distance himself from the accusations, claiming that he “never abandoned” Payne.

“I went to his hotel three times that day and left 40 minutes before this happened,” Nores — an Argentinian businessman who befriended Payne in 2020 — told the Daily Mail on Thursday.

“There were over 15 people at the hotel lobby chatting and joking with him when I left.”

Nores — who “could have never imagined something like this would happen” — said that he gave his “statement to the prosecutor on Oct. 17 as a witness” before insisting that he hasn’t spoken to “any police officer” since.

Payne’s body is finally being put to rest in England after his father, Geoff, was able to take his body home last week.