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Liam Payne’s heartbroken mother has told friends: ‘I’ve lost my beautiful boy.’

These were the only words nursery nurse Karen Payne could bring herself to say to loved ones who have been rallying around her in the wake of her son’s tragic and untimely death.

Payne fell to his death from the third-floor balcony of the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires on Wednesday in what prosecutors have described as a ‘drug-induced episode’.

Longstanding friends and celebrity hair stylists Royston Blythe and Nick Malenko were among the first to reach out to his heartbroken family, who live in his home city of Wolverhampton and include Karen, her husband Geoff, and their daughters, Nicola and Ruth.

Mr Malenko said: ‘I messaged his mum Karen. She’s finding it hard to speak about what’s happened, but she said ”I’ve lost my beautiful boy”.’

Paying tribute to the singer, who was once a regular at the Royston Blythe hair salon in Compton, Wolverhampton, Mr Malenko continued: ‘He was a beautiful boy inside and out.

‘It’s absolutely shocking and devastating that such a young and talent life has gone. We are never going to see him again. There are so many tears here, how can we put how we feel into words?

‘We have sold the business now, but he’d been coming to the salon to get his hair done since he was a young lad. His mum still gets her hair done there.

‘When he was competing in X Factor we put up posters in the windows to get people to vote for him. Of course, after that he became a global phenomenon. We always saw him as a hero at the salon.