Fact check: Videos of people falling from buildings are over a year old

One Direction star Liam Payne died in Argentina on Wednesday, causing footage of men plummeting from balconies to be shared out of context.

Friday 18 October 2024 07:01 EDT

Videos purporting to show Payne have been shared on social media (Ken Howard/Alamy/PA)

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(Warning: graphic content in links)

A graphic video has been shared repeatedly on social media claiming to show One Direction star Liam Payne falling to his death on Wednesday.

A second graphic video has also been shared purporting to show Payne’s fall.

Evaluation

The first video does not show the lead-up to Payne’s death in Argentina. It was filmed in Mexico and has been online since at least September 2023.

The second video was filmed in Argentina, but does not depict Payne. It has been online since at least June 2023.

The facts

Payne was in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, at the time of his death, and was reported as falling from the third floor of a building.

The first video

As was pointed out by other social media users, the first video was shot in Mexico City. One posted a link to a news report which linked to a post on X from September 13, 2023.

This post included the video, proving that it was taken long before Payne’s death. The post claims the video was taken at the intersection of the streets Republica de Cuba and Republica de Chile.

Google Street View imagery from that intersection, which is in the heart of Mexico City, clearly proves that the location is correct.

The windows and rounded balcony can be seen in both the video and the Street View images, and the shutters on the building at the street below also matches in both the video and Street View.

The second video

A reply to one of the posts which includes the second video said that the video was from May 2024. That reply linked to another post on X which was from May and showed the same video.

However, a reverse image search on Google shows that the video is even older than that.

One post which included the video on June 22 2023 identified it as being filmed on Av San Martin 2300.

Google Street View imagery from that street shows a building which clearly matches the building seen in the video of the person falling from a balcony.