Liam Payne's girlfriend Kate Cassidy has spoken out for the first time since his death as she revealed the singer's love for his former bandmates. Kate, 25, had been with the late star in Argentina days before his death, heading home to their shared multi-million pound mansion in the States.

She has since left this home and has moved back in with her parents in New Jersey while she . In an interview with , Kate revealed Liam "loved ".

She said: "It was such a huge part of his life and career. Who didn’t love them? I think everybody had hopes for a reunion at some point. One Direction was such a huge part of his life and he would have been more than happy in the future to do that."

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Liam joined the band alongside , Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson when they auditioned for hit talent competition The in 2010. The group went from strength to strength, fast becoming one of the world's biggest ever boybands.

But fans were left devastated when the band announced they were officially separating in 2016.

In her interview, Kate revealed Liam was "proud" of his bandmates and that he "loved them so much he looked at them as brothers." She continued: "It’s so heartbreaking that the fans will never get to see all five boys back on stage together.

"2030 would have marked 20 years since they first got together and it’s so sad that Liam will never get to relive those memories." Kate has faced plenty of backlash online from fans claiming she should have never left the singer alone.

"I’m trying to be as strong as I can be," she said. "I feel really alone but I know Liam wouldn’t want me to.

"He would want me to do what makes me happy and to be as strong as I can be like, no matter what people say. He would tell me: ‘Please just take care of yourself, because I can’t take care of you anymore’."

Liam had openly discussed what it was like to become so famous so quickly at a young age. The 31-year-old was just 15 when he took to the stage, and his life became regimented with . His daily routine was in the hands of the staff around him, he said, and when that was no longer the case, he revealed that he struggled to know what to do with himself.

Speaking on in 2021, the troubled star said: "My life's been so controlled to a point, day sheets, security guards, you know, anything. And it's all everybody else is dictating, puppet master over the top of your life. Then you just get to a point where it's like, you have to take some control by yourself.

"And until I started to do that with my life, then I was living for everybody else. And I'm a complete people-pleaser anyway. So it was like nothing in my life was about serving myself, which then that just led me in a bad place and finding enjoyment from other stuff that I don't need."

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