Kate Cassidy has revealed she is ready to start dating again, 18 months after the tragic passing of her boyfriend, former One Direction star Liam Payne. The American influencer, 27, dated Payne for two years until his death at age 31 in October 2024, following a fall from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina. An autopsy found alcohol and cocaine in his system.
Cassidy has been open with her followers about her grief process, often sharing her feelings on social media. In a video posted to Instagram on Friday, she confessed: 'I am ready to start dating again. It has been a year and a half since Liam passed away. I think that love after loss is a big chapter within your grief journey and I don't know how that is going to feel. But I do know 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.'
She continued: 'I will always love Liam and that will never change no matter who I meet and who comes into my life. I am going to think about Liam on my wedding day, I am going to think about him everyday for the rest of my life and that goes without saying.'
The announcement comes after Cassidy teased she was ready to start dating again earlier this month, filming a fun TikTok video where she tagged the network behind The Bachelorette and asked to be chosen for the show. In the video, she danced for the camera wearing sunglasses and wrote: 'Heard they're looking for a new Bachelorette.... hi'. She captioned the post: 'hi abc'.
Fans responded enthusiastically, commenting: 'I'd watch the show for the first time if you went on it'; 'Wait but genuinely can this happen'; 'Girl wait.. you might be onto something here..'; 'Your season would EAT'; 'Actually you would be a good match for this'; and 'I'd watch the bachelorette for the first time in my life if they picked you'.
Cassidy also addressed an online troll who said they wished she would stop talking about Payne and move on. In a previous TikTok, she said: 'I want to make something clear. Whoever I end up with in my future will have to accept the fact I will always love Liam. I will always talk about Liam, I will always laugh about Liam, I will always cry about Liam.'
She added: 'Let me tell you something, Liam Payne was my boyfriend. He wasn't just this famous figure to me. It hurts so bad because I am just criticised all the time for speaking about my boyfriend that passed away, the person that I loved and still do love. I would never settle for anyone in this lifetime who did not feel comfortable enough with me speaking about Liam. Liam was a very big part of my life. He was my best friend, somebody I really thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with and, obviously, I know one day I'm going to have to move on. I want to get married one day. I want to have kids.'
She concluded: 'When a person dies, they die twice, once when they actually die and the second time when you stop speaking about them. I'm not going to have Liam die twice on me. I will love him forever.'
