Inside Liam Payne's Relationship With Cheryl Cole

When it comes to the story of Liam Payne's life, one of the key chapters began when he was barely a teen. 

The day after the One Direction alum's shocking death at the age of 31, a letter he'd penned to his younger self resurfaced on social media. 

"Dear 10-year-old Liam, get ready," the musician began the 2020 missive, written for an appearance on the BBC. "It's about to get a little bumpy." 

While at the time he could have never predicted the ending that would come when he tragically fell from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires Oct. 16, he was well-versed in the highs and lows he'd experience first. 

“When you turn 14, something magical is going to happen,” Payne wrote, joking. “I'm not talking about puberty." Rather, he was reflecting on that first 2008 audition for The X Factor that would see him belting out Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon." 

Though the performance didn't immediately send him soaring to stardom—the native of Wolverhampton in England's West Midlands was eliminated and encouraged to return in two years when he met the show's new 16-and-over age requirement—it did upend his entire universe. 

Because while it would take his second go-round to link up with future bandmates Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson and form the mid-aughts answer to The Beatles, at that first audition, he spied judge and eventual girlfriend Cheryl Cole, mom to his now 7-year-old son Bear. 

Or, as Payne put it in his message, "Not only will you audition for one of the biggest music shows in the world, but you'll also meet the future mother of your child. I know it seems early, but just trust me, it's all going to work out however it's supposed to."

Because soon after the band announced the 2015 hiatus that would prove to be permanent, Payne would find a new duet partner in freshly divorced Girls Aloud member Cole. 

Lasting just two years, their romance was a whirlwind, the pair welcoming their little cub in March 2017, 16 months before they'd announce their split. But it was certainly impactful. 

Reflecting on 1D's break, Payne wrote to his tween self, "It will feel scary like you're alone, but you are not. You're about to start a total new journey with the most amazing person you've met so far, your son Bear.”

"Don't doubt yourself at this dad thing," he continued. “Just look at all the things you've learned along the way. Surely that must mean you've got a lot to give."

As for his bond with Cole, who has yet to speak out since Payne's death, it would also prove eternal.

"I couldn't ask someone better," he shared on Logan Paul's Impaulsive podcast in 2022. "The relationship we have with each other now as friends has only grown more."

Written in these words is the story of their brief, but life-changing relationship.  

The story of Liam Payne and Cheryl Cole's romance began when he was just 14 and auditioning for what he'd call "one of the biggest music shows in the world." While his stab at solo stardom ended when he was cut during The X Factor's Judges' Houses round, the moment was certainly the start of something beautiful. 

"Let's address the elephant in the room," he cracked when revisiting the experience for Esquire's "I Hate Watching Myself" series in 2020, "the future mother of my son is sat in that chair."

Though he and the 10-years-his-senior Girls Aloud musician (who dubbed him "really cute" following his performance) wouldn't kick off their romance for nearly a decade, he joked of the audition, "This is now an episode of How I Met Your Mother, so that's enough of that I think."

When Payne returned to The X Factor stage at age 16, his version of Michael Bublé's "Cry Me a River" impressed Simon Cowell, who delivered a standing ovation, and Cole. "You've definitely got it," she declared. "Whatever it is, you got it."

Though it was not enough to propel him past the boot camp stage, judge Nicole Scherzinger floated the idea of pairing Payne with fellow auditioners Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson.

"They're just too talented to get rid of," she said in never-before-seen footage released in 2022. "They’ve got just the right look and the right charisma onstage. I think they’ll be really great in a boy band together. They're like little stars. You can’t get rid of little stars, you know? So you put them all together."

It turned out pretty okay. 

Five albums, seven American Music Awards and five years as the biggest boy band on the planet later, One Direction went home again, marking their final performance before their hiatus at the 2015 X Factor finale. 

Payne sang "History" and "Infinity" with his crew and shared a hug with Cole. 

Citing irreconcilable differences, musician Cole filed to end her second marriage to Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini, the French restauranteur she met at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014 and married three months later. 

Days after Payne sparked speculation that he was seeing Cole (briefly changing his Instagram profile picture to a photo of the two of them before reverting to a solo snap), they visited London's Salmontini restarant on March 9, 2016.

As rumors began cooking that Cole had cheated on her former husband with the musician, she clapped back on X (then Twitter). 

"If anybody believes the s--t they're reading today," she wrote in the April 16, 2016 post, "you really don't know me at all."

Turns out it was Cole's talent and giving heart that made her beautiful to Payne. Joining the Girls Aloud musician at the Global Gift Gala in Paris on May 9, 2019 to watch her receive the Global Gift Philanthropist Award, he wrote on X, alongside several kiss emojis, "So proud of her tonight."

Mum was the word when the duo worked the carpet at the St James Christmas Carol Concert in London on Nov. 29, 2016, but Cole allowed her figure-hugging dress do the talking. 

Though the pair never addressed her pregnancy, when Payne was asked by fans on social media how he was doing that December, he responded, "The happiest I could be." 

A month after Cole sorta kinda confirmed her pregnancy with a maternity shoot, the couple announced on social media that their pack had grown. 

"My close friends and family know there are very few times when I'm left speechless... wow!" he wrote on Instagram. "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 favourite memory I have so far."

Staring at 7-pound, 9-ounce Bear Grey, "I'm completely in awe of his incredible mother and how she has been the whole way through this," he added, "she's really made my dreams come true."

Though he later admitted he fought for a more "traditional" name for his cub, "The reason she chose Bear was because Bear is a name that when you leave a room, you won't forget," he explained during a May 2017 Total Access radio interview. "And I like that." 

By May 2017, Payne had taken to calling Cole his "wife," sharing how he never predicted the story of his life would take him here. 

"Obviously I have the most beautiful girlfriend in the world, and she's absolutely amazing," he told the U.K.'s Rollacoaster magazine. "She's been my dream girl since I was younger. She's so ace."

But by the following summer, their brief romance had folded. 

"Cheryl and I are sad to announce that we are going our separate ways," he wrote in an X missive July 1, 2018. "It's been a tough decision for us to make. We still have so much love for each other as a family. Bear is our world and we ask that you respect his privacy as we navigate our way through this together." 

Cole responded with a near-identical message. 

As for the rumors her mom came between them, "I can assure you she has absolutely nothing to do with any of it," she shared on X. I am a grown woman who is capable of dealing with my own life. She is a soft and kind woman who doesn't deserve to be dragged into something that has nothing whatsoever to do with her."

Instead their issues were of the fairly common variety. 

"You know, we have our struggles," he confessed to ES magazine months earlier. "I'm not gonna sit here and say that everything's absolutely fine and dandy, because of course you go through different things, and that's what a relationship is."

Though their romance was short-lived, Payne and Cole proved they were headed in the right direction when it came to their son. 

"Liam is a great dad. He's much softer than me," Cole said in an April 2019 interview with The Telegraph. "But it is what it is, and I'm OK about it. When you have a baby, you are not consumed with just thinking about yourself. It's your responsibility to keep things settled and happy, so you make the best of everything. And we have."

Years later, Payne was signing the same tune when appearing on Logan Paul's Impaulsive podcast in 2022.

"We broke up for a reason and now, she gives me full autonomy of my own life to be able to go and do what I do and at the same time I know he's been taken care of because he's all she cares about," he gushed of his former girlfriend. "You couldn't ask for more."

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