Tributes are pouring in for singer Liam Payne, who has died after falling from a third-floor balcony in Argentina,
The 31 year old shot to fame as a member of One Direction after auditioning for The X Factor UK in 2010.
His most important role, however, had nothing to do with the boyband – and everything to do with his seven-year-old son, Bear Payne.
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A little over a year before he died, Payne reflected on how he entered rehab in the hopes of being an even better father to Bear.
“There’s no point in trying to be a dad when you’ve got nothing to teach,” he said in a message thanking Bear and his mother, parachute singer Cheryl, for their support.
Payne first met Cheryl in 2008, when he auditioned for The X Factor UK for the first time at age 14 and was sent through to bootcamp by then-25-year-old Cheryl.
Little did fans know at the time, that almost a decade later, the two would be welcoming their first child together.
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Back in 2008, Payne was eliminated from The X Factor UK by Simon Cowell. There was no interaction between Payne and Cheryl for years, until the Ice Bucket Challenge rolled around in 2014.
Cherly posted a clip of her completing the challenge to social media with her husband at the time, Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini, pouring the bucket over her head.
In her post, she nominated three people to complete the challenge next: Piers Morgan, Nicola Roberts, and Payne.
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Little was thought of it at the time, but when the duo were pictured sharing an cozy hug during an ad break at the 2015 The X Factor UK Finally, the rumor mill began to swirl.
By January 2016, Cheryl had split from her former husband and she and Payne had shared several cheeky exchanges on social media, fueling the rumors that the pair were indeed together.
After a whirlwind two months of speculation, Payne finally confirmed that the rumors were true, posting a picture of him and Cheryl together to Instagram.
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The pair moved fast, making no attempt to hide their relationship from the spotlight despite the scrutiny surrounding their 10-year age gap.
But in November 2016, when People confirmed that Payne and Cheryl were expecting their first child together, fans had nothing but excitement to share with the couple.
Bear Gray Payne was born on March 22, 2017, with the new parents announcing his birth on Instagram just a few days later.
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“I’m incredibly happy to welcome our new baby boy into the world, it’s a moment that I will never forget for the rest of my life and my favorite memory I have so far,” Payne wrote, adding that he was “completely in awe” of Cheryl for making his “dreams come true.”
It took them a few days to settle on a name, with Payne telling Total Access in May 2017 that the decision was “like an internal battle,” but they ultimately decided on Bear because it’s “a name that when you leave a room, you won’t forget.”
Payne and Cheryl ultimately went their separate ways in 2018, however continued to maintain a healthy co-parenting relationship with the One Direction star saying he saw his son two or three times a week in a 2022 interview with People,
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“I make sure when I see him, he has 100 per cent of my time,” the singer shared. “I make sure that I’m not on my phone or dicking around somewhere else.”
“So, I like to give him those moments and it’s important, he needs that in his life, he needs his dad in his life, and I’m happy he looks at me like a superhero, and I’m hoping to keep it that way.”
The former couple had agreed to maintain their son’s privacy, choosing to only share images with his face hidden.
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“Obviously, we protected his identity to start off with, and that’s not being pretentious or anything other than the fact that I want to give him a chance to be Bear first before he has to be, ‘Oh, your mum and dad are so and so’ you know,” Payne said during a 2021 appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast,
“And I made my choice to be where I was at 14, 15, so I figure he can make his own choice then too.”
And while the public have never seen the youngsters face, the Bedroom Floor Singer once confirmed that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
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“He looks exactly like me, which is very strange,” Payne told People in 2020. “When family members see baby pictures of me now, they say, ‘Oh wow, Bear looks really great there!'”
And although the singer had always wanted to be a dad at a young age, he shared that it didn’t come as first nature to him.
“You think it will be a magical thing, that you’re going to grow up one day into the person you’re supposed to be,” he admitted to. People,
“But it took a lot to find my footing. I figured, Dad takes care of everyone, that’s what he does, so my thing was to cook.”
Over the years, the singer was open about his struggles with mental health and addiction, posting a video in 2023 revealing that he had been sober for six months after spending time at a rehabilitation centre, thanking both Bear and Cheryl for their support.
“I wanna say thank you to him and his mum for giving me a little bit of freedom to go and get well,” he shared.
After leaving rehab, Payne jumped straight back into dad life, even sharing a rare image of the now seven-year-old earlier this year.
In the picture, Bear was gazing up at a billboard featuring a picture of his dad promoting new music.
Payne captioned the post with a sweet sentiment shared by his son, ”I want to be on a billboard one day daddy.”
If you, or someone you know would like to talk to someone confidentially about addiction, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit Reach Out,
If you or someone you know needs immediate or mental health-related support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or via lifeline.org.au,
In an emergency, call 000.