An official investigation is ongoing into the October death of former One Direction member Liam Payne. But TMZ is still gonna give you its version. In TMZ Investigates: Liam Payne: Who’s to Blame?, now streaming on Hulu, Harvey Levin questions a guest who says he witnessed Payne’s deadly fall from a hotel balcony in Argentina. Drew Pinsky surfaces with theories on drug addiction as it relates to celebrity lifestyles. And persons of interest to official investigators are also interviewed, like a friend of Payne’s who was with him on the day he died, and hotel staffers who may have provided the singer with illegal narcotics. But it’s another question whether Who’s to Blame? gets to the bottom of – or even anywhere near – who is actually to blame.
TMZ INVESTIGATES LIAM PAYNE WHO’S TO BLAME?: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “News tonight from Argentina, where officials say Liam Payne, a former member of the boy band One Direction, has died after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires…”
The Gist: Right at the top of Who’s to Blame?, Levin, TMZ’s founder, touts how his organization broke the news of Liam Payne’s death, “a story that is going to be very upsetting for millions of One Direction fans.” Though the site was accused of insensitivity, and retracted the photos it first published, neither that reaction nor the active investigation into Payne’s demise has stopped TMZ from going ahead with this program, which presents their version of what occurred. And so Levin interviews Bret Watson, who was also a guest at CasaSur Palermo, the Buenos Aires hotel where Payne was staying. “We saw Liam fall,” Watson says. He adds that what’s really stayed with him was the sound of the impact, three stories below.
TMZ also has a producer on the ground in Argentina, and shows off related material it has gathered, including photos, documents, and associated surveillance camera screen grabs. Again and again, it plays a video clip of Payne, apparently under the influence of alcohol and drugs, being carried bodily from the CasaSur lobby back to his room. It attributes statements to Argentine prosecutors as “going after” Payne’s friend Roger Nores for his alleged abandonment of the singer, as well as two different hotel employees who may have provided Payne with cocaine. It includes brief interviews with one of them, a CasaSur waiter, as well as Nores. Both deny they are to blame.
“There’s little doubt [Payne] was trying to scale down the third floor balcony to the ground to escape,” Levin says in Who’s to Blame?, and other observers, including YouTuber Kiki Monique, say Payne might have had in mind his recent legal dramas with ex-fiancée Maya Henry “when he went on this drug-induced bender.” So does that mean Liam Payne is the one to blame? TMZ includes still more conjecture about the state of the singer’s decision-making on the day he died, the more tawdry details of which it plots on an onscreen timeline.
Photo: YouTube/X Factor Global
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The corner of Hulu where TMZ Investigates resides is like a streaming version of shouty tabloid headlines at the supermarket. Joining Liam Payne: Who’s to Blame are titles like Lisa Marie Presley: Unending Tragedy, Lamar Odom: Sex, Drugs & Kardashians, and TMZ Investigates 9/11: The Fifth Plane.
Our Take: By the time Liam Payne: Who’s to Blame? gets around to a video montage of narcotics-involved celebrity deaths – Matthew Perry, Michael Jackson – it has clearly moved on from laying any blame specific to Payne’s circumstances, wanting instead to plug the former One Directioner into its larger preferred narrative. It spends a lot of time setting up a timeline, to rebuild Payne’s movements on the day of his demise. Which does offer some insight. But that segment ties right back to the singer’s drug use, and highlights his mention of calling an escort service, and ultimately concludes with LIAM PAYNE DIES in an all red caps lock, as if to grab your eye at a trashy magazine stand. There are bits of valid information here, facts that feel like they could be relevant in an official death investigation. But Who’s to Blame?, despite the bold question of its title, is not that investigation. It’s sensationalism focused on celebrity tragedy, invested more in gory details than any kind of definitive reporting.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Footage plays of Liam Payne’s funeral back in Britain, which was attended by Simon Cowell and former members of One Direction. TMZ says Roger Nores, Payne’s friend who was with him in Argentina, was not invited.
Sleeper Star: It’s not surprising when Drew Pinsky appears in a TMZ production to provide external commentary on the use of drugs by a celebrity. What is surprising is that “Dr. Drew” is somehow ageless? We kept expecting him to start taking callers like it was still Loveline in 1997.
Most Pilot-y Line: Harvey Levin, in a show his outfit produced, with Who’s to Blame? right there in the title: “When you see a celebrity die and there are drugs involved, or people who you think had some responsibility, there seems to be an outcry to avenge that celebrity’s death, and to find someone to blame.”
