Liam Payne chose third floor room – despite ‘manager’ booking another suite (
Image: AFP via Getty Images)

One Direction star Liam Payne died aged 31 in October last year after falling from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires

Liam Payne’s close friend Roger Nores was shown a first-floor room he “liked a lot” before the singer ended up checking into the third-floor suite where he plunged to his death after binging on drink and drugs, it emerged last night.

Hotel managers told the businessman they were fully booked but promised to do all they could to find something for the artist – and 24 hours later Liam checked into room 310 two floors higher up and not the one Roger originally took a “great liking” to which according to a fascinating document now with the courts was 110.

It was not immediately clear last night if the lack of availability had been the reason why the former One Direction singer had ended up in a room 45ft above the restaurant terrace where he died on October 16 where the chances of serious injury or death from any fall would obviously have been far greater.

The room revelation was contained in an internal hotel memo published by Argentinian media for the first time today. Significantly the unnamed employee at CasaSur Palermo Hotel who wrote it referred to Mr Nores, one of three men charged with manslaughter on December 27 over Liam’s death, as his manager despite the businessman’s insistence he never performed such a role.

The email memo was written at 8.10pm on October 11, a day before the singer checked in and was titled ‘Liam Payne – One Direction.’ The recipients included chief receptionist Esteban Grassi, who made a 911 call moments before Liam died and is one of the two other men charged with manslaughter alongside head of security Gilda Martin.

Payne died in October after falling from the third-floor balcony ( 
Image:
AFP via Getty Images)
The email, written in Spanish and published by respected Argentinian news website Infobae, reads in English: “Good afternoon. Today one of former One Direction singer Liam Payne’s managers showed up, requesting a suite from Monday October 14 to Friday October 18. We showed him room 110 which the manager liked a lot. We informed him we didn’t have any availability but we also told him we were going to do everything possible to generate the corresponding availability.

“He left us the following contact details so we could let him know when we did have availability and what the rates were.” The word ‘Manager’ was written along the name Roger Nores towards the end of the email and the words assistant manager against the name below Roger’s – that of Lulu Miranda who has been referred to in prior reports about the Liam Payne investigation as a pop star and a friend of Mr Nores.

She is believed to be a Los Angeles-born artist born to an Argentinian diplomat father and a Brazilian mother who has lived in Buenos Aires since she was a teenager. She is not among the five people charged late last month by judge Laura Bruniard and there is no suggestion at this stage she will be accused of any wrongdoing, or that she was actually acting as Liam’s assistant manager in any formal or informal capacity.

Liam Payne’s close friend Roger Nores was shown a first-floor room he ‘liked a lot’ before the singer was given the third floor suite ( 
Image:
Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Judge Bruniard in her indictment ruling accused Mr Nores, currently banned from leaving Argentina because of the charges against him, of “failing in his duty of care, assistance and help” towards the singer and “abandoning him to his fate, knowing he couldn’t fend for himself, aware he suffered multiple additions to alcohol and cocaine and fully conscious of the state of intoxication, vulnerably and defenceless he was in.”

Mr Nores told a recent TMZ documentary examining the life and death of Liam Payne that he was “in good spirits and perfectly balanced” the day he died as he refuted claims the singer was acting erratically and was intoxicated shortly before his fatal fall.
The businessman had previously protested his innocence and refuted claims he was Liam’s ‘de facto’ manager which is seen as a key aspect to the prosecution decision.

He said in a statement shortly after it emerged he was being officially investigated before being charged: “I never abandoned Liam, I went to his hotel three times that day and left 40 minutes before this happened. There were over 15 people at the hotel lobby chatting and joking with him when I left. I could have never imagined something like this would happen. I’ve given my statement to the prosecutor on October 17 as a witness and I haven’t spoken to any police officer or prosecutor ever since. I wasn’t Liam’s manager. He was just my very dear friend.”