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Kate Cassidy is back on the dating scene 18 months after boyfriend Liam Payne’s untimely death.
The influencer, 27, took to Instagram on Monday, April 27, to share a “Get Ready With Me” video as she prepared to go on a first date. She explained that she met the man through mutual friends, adding that he had “always been interested” in her, but she was never sure she felt the same way.
“This is so new to me,” she continued. “I’m just kind of in the headspace where I’m down to give whoever a chance.”
Cassidy shared that she and her date planned to have dinner at a casual dive bar, noting that he offered to order her an Uber ride to the restaurant, which she thought was “really important.”
“I feel really excited, to be honest,” Cassidy concluded.
Cassidy’s milestone dating moment comes over a year after Payne died at 31 after falling from a third-floor balcony at the CasaSur Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in October 2024. Cassidy had been vacationing with the One Direction singer at the time, returning home to the United States days before his death. The model later opened up about her regrets over leaving the country so soon.
“Love is so optimistic, and you just hope that everything will work out at the end. Obviously, if I knew, if I could see into the future, I would never have left Argentina,” she told The Sun in February 2025. “I just never thought this would have happened, that it would turn out the way it did. It still doesn’t feel fully real for me that he’s not here.”
Cassidy paid tribute to Payne on the one-year anniversary of his death with a series of black-and-white photos featuring the couple during their relationship.
“Today marks a full year without you here,” she wrote in the caption. “I will forever hate goodbyes. I miss you Liam.”
Months later, Cassidy shared in a Friday, April 24, TikTok video that she felt “ready to start dating again.”
“I think that love after loss is a big chapter within your grief journey and I don’t know how that’s gonna feel,” she explained. “But what I do know is that I loved being in love. I want to have kids one day. I want to have a family, and I know Liam would want that for me, and if the roles were reversed, I would want him to be happy and fall in love again.”
Cassidy added that she would “always love” Payne.
“That will never change, no matter who I meet and who comes into my life,” the content creator said, getting choked up. “I am probably going to — not even probably, I’m going to think about Liam on my wedding day. I’m going to think about him every day for the rest of my life, and that goes without saying.”
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