Liam Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy was in ‘hostage situation’ in Argentina: source

Liam Payne’s grieving girlfriend Kate Cassidy felt like she was a “hostage situation” with the One Direction star in Argentina before she returned home to Miami — days before he plunged to his death, says a friend whom she confided in.

Cassidy agonized over whether to leave or to stay in Argentina, and wonders whether she could have prevented his death.

The 25-year-old influencer worried that Payne was preparing to go on a bender once she left — but she just couldn’t stay any longer, the friend told The Post.

“She can’t leave, or else who knows what will happen? And if she leaves, what will he do? But she has other responsibilities, other things that she’s supposed to be doing. So she finally had to make a decision,” the close pal said.

The New Jersey-born beauty left Argentina just days before the 31-year-old singer died instantly of massive internal and external injuries when he took his fatal fall from his hotel balcony.

She had initially planned to stay just four days in Argentina, but she extended the trip to more than two weeks.

“They’re in Argentina and it’s like a hostage situation,” the friend said.

She added: “So she tells him she wants to leave, this is after a week. He begs her to stay. She keeps extending her trip, a day, two days. And he just wants her to stay, stay, stay.”

“I get what people are saying, that she should just stay with her rich famous boyfriend,” the friend continued, “but she wanted to be home in her own bed with her dog. She wanted to come home. So eventually she says she’s going home.”

On Wednesday, Cassidy revealed on her Instagram that Payne told her he planned to ask her to marry him and that the couple spent time “manifesting our lives together” just weeks before his death.

“I keep your note close, even though you told me not to look at it. It said, ‘Me and Kate to marry within a year/ engaged & together forever 444,’” she said in a note to her followers.

According to a police report, Payne had a toxic mixture of drugs in his system at the time of his death — including crack and so-called “pink cocaine” — which is a mixture of ketamine and other drugs.

Authorities say that he spent his last hours with two prostitutes, who drank with him and then left after a dispute about payment.