‘He asked me to be best man’: Liam Payne’s Pal Roger Nores reveals singer’s marriage plan
Singer Liam Payne asked Roger Nores on October 13 last year to be his best man at his forthcoming wedding to his girlfriend Kate Cassidy, despite not having proposed yet. Roger accepted, but tragically, Liam died three days later.
In his first major interview since the incident, Roger tells the Mail, “I was heartbroken when I heard, of course. But it’s so much more than that. I still think I’m going to bump into him, or my phone’s going to ring and he’ll be on the other end of the line.”
Five months have passed since Payne’s fatal fall from the CasaSur Palermo Hotel‘s third-floor balcony in Buenos Aires. Nores last saw Liam in the lobby at 4.06pm on October 16, when he appeared sober and cheerful, Daily Mail reported.
Subsequently, Liam allegedly engaged in drug use, resulting in him ‘convulsing’ on the hotel lobby floor around 4.50pm, according to a witness. Staff took him to his suite at 4.54pm. At 5.07pm, he was discovered deceased in the hotel’s internal courtyard from multiple traumatic injuries.
Following Argentine legal procedures, on December 30, Judge Laura Bruniard charged five individuals, including Roger Nores, who faces manslaughter charges for allegedly failing to provide adequate care to the singer. Roger strongly contests these accusations.
Roger reveals that Liam was sectioned in May last year after a near-fatal overdose. Their friendship began at a London party in 2020, hosted by British Vogue’s then-editor Edward Enninful. Despite their contrasting lifestyles – Roger being teetotal and Liam known for partying – they developed a close bond.
Roger, a successful businessman who founded StoneWay Capital at 23, raised $500 million for Argentine power plants. Despite their age difference, they considered each other ‘older brothers’.
“The truth is that we both wanted to be a little more like each other,” Roger explains. “I wanted to get out a bit more and have fun, while he wanted to be a little more boring. He would frequently help me with relationship advice: of course, Liam was great with girls. When it came to emotions, he was always a guy I could call.”
Roger is currently pursuing a $10 million defamation case against Liam’s father, Geoff Payne, in Florida, regarding false claims about Roger’s role in Liam’s care. Documentation confirms no formal care arrangement existed between them.
During the Covid years (2020-2022), their interaction was limited to occasional dinners and phone calls. In a 2021 podcast, Liam had discussed his struggles with substances, which began during One Direction’s peak years, exacerbated by isolation in hotel rooms.
