Liam Payne toxicology report reveals presence of ‘pink cocaine’
Post-mortem tests ‘show the singer had consumed multiple drugs’ before his death as music industry insiders call for safeguards for teen stars.
Liam Payne had multiple substances in his system, including “pink cocaine”, when he plunged to his death from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, it has been claimed.
A partial post-mortem examination found that as well as pink cocaine, a designer drug that is a mixture of several substances including ketamine, MDMA and methamphetamine and is known for its vibrant colour, traces of benzodiazepine and crack cocaine were discovered in the singer’s body, according to ABC News.
An improvised aluminium pipe to consume the drugs was found in the One Direction singer’s room at the CasaSur Hotel in the trendy suburb of Palermo, the American broadcaster said.
Marcelo Roma, who is leading the investigation into Payne’s death, announced on Monday that preliminary results of tests carried out on Payne’s body revealed the presence of cocaine.
Two members of the hotel’s staff are being investigated by police over allegations that they supplied the singer with drugs in the days immediately before his death. The two men, a cleaner and another member of staff, are accused of smuggling narcotics into Payne’s room.
Payne’s sister Nicola paid tribute to her brother on Monday, saying he was an “angel who just lived for making people smile and happy”.
In a statement on Instagram, she said that she hoped the her brother had “finally found peace” and criticised those who are “quick to judge someone from a few five-second clips”.
“When I saw the news pop up on my phone that you had left us I went cold, I wanted so much for this to be untrue. I have spent days hoping that it was a mistake and somebody has got it wrong. You were truly too good for this earth, you are an angel who just lived for making people smile and happy,” she said.
She added that the Payne family were his “biggest fans … you led your life with a motto of why bother doing something unless you are brilliant at it, and Liam you were certainly brilliant at everything you did”.
Payne’s father travelled to Argentina before the weekend to arrange the repatriation of his son’s body. One Direction fans gathered in central London and other British cities to pay tribute to him on Sunday afternoon.
A spokesman for the British embassy in Argentina said: “We are supporting the family of Liam Payne who has died in Argentina and are in contact with the local authorities.”
Young musicians aspiring to achieve pop stardom should not be in a boy band until they are at least 18, a songwriter who has worked with Tina Turner, Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams has said.
‘Don’t be in a boy band’
Guy Chambers, who co-wrote some of Williams’s most iconic hits, including Angels, Let Me Entertain You and Rock DJ, is worried about the lack of care and support for vulnerable young artists in the wake of Payne’s death.
Amid the outpouring of grief from devastated family members, friends and fans, there have been multiple calls from music industry stalwarts for stronger measures to help protect young people in the business.
“I would suggest that people should not be in a boy band until they are 18 and the industry should stick to that,” Chambers told The Observer.
“I do think putting a 16-year-old in an adult world like that is potentially really damaging. Robbie experienced that, certainly,” he said, adding that “in Robbie’s case, with Take That, there wasn’t any proper protection set up to look after what were teenage boys”.
Chambers maintained that he had seen “little change” since Take That was formed in Manchester in 1990.
He also criticised the negative impact of television talent programmes. One Direction was created on The X factor in 2010. Chambers said that he believed that “not much more real care is taken, that I have observed, from people involved in the big television talent shows”.
Simon Cowell, the music mogul who created the show, said that he was “truly devastated” after Payne’s death.
Payne, 31, first auditioned for The X Factor in 2008 when he was 14, singing Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon, with Cowell telling him to return to the talent show two years later.
The American singer Bruce Springsteen warned that the music industry “puts enormous pressures on young people”. He told The Telegraph: “Young people don’t have the inner facility or the inner self yet to be able to protect themselves from a lot of the things that come with success and fame.”
Williams, 50, and The X Factor star Katie Waissel, 38, joined the calls for greater care and support for young artists. “The change the industry so desperately needs will come, and we will honour your legacy until it does. Keep singing in the sky, my friend,” Waissel wrote in a tribute on social media.
Williams, who performed with One Direction during the 2010 final of The X Factor, said on Instagram on Friday that he was reeling with “shock and sadness” following Payne’s death. He also told the entertainment news site Deadline that young stars should be protected: “Nothing seems to change and if isn’t me, then who? … I am the problem if I do nothing. We are the problem if we don’t.”
