Inside Liam Payne's rocky romance with Cheryl: How pressures of parenthood and struggles with drugs may have fuelled split - after they first crossed paths when he was 14

It was in back in 2008 when a nervous 14-year-old Liam Payne made his first bid for stardom and took his place in front of a quartet of X Factor judges singing a version of Frank Sinatra's Fly Me to the Moon.

One of those judges, alongside Simon Cowell , Dannii Minogue and Louis Walsh , was Cheryl Tweedy, then 25 and a pop veteran who had herself been catapulted to fame six years earlier in ITV reality show Popstars: The Rivals.

The Newcastle-born star was one of five girls put together by Cowell to form Girls Aloud , who went on to win the contest and top the charts.

It meant that when she first crossed paths with the waistcoat-clad, mop-haired Payne, Ms Tweedy was already a bone fide star – although Payne was clearly not too overawed by her celebrity, as he pointedly gave her a cheeky wink during his performance.

Though the teenager did not know it at the time, she was also the future mother of his son, as he later reflected ruefully while rewatching that first audition in an interview for men's magazine Esquire in May 2020.

'Let's address the elephant in the room,' he told his interviewers. 'Obviously, the future mother of my son is sitting in that chair. This is now an episode of How I Met Your Mother, so that's enough of that I think.'

While Ms Tweedy – who at the time was married to footballer Ashley Cole – had made it clear she thought the teenager was 'really cute' and had 'charisma', it would be another seven years, and after her marriage to Cole was over, before a romantic relationship blossomed.

By then, Payne was himself a star – arguably a much bigger one than Ms Tweedy. While he had failed to make it through early X Factor auditions in 2008, after returning to the show two years later for another try – when Ms Tweedy was still a judge – he was put together with Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik to form One Direction.

The following year, the band's debut single went straight to number one, marking the start of global chart success that would make them one of the biggest boybands in the world.

No doubt Ms Tweedy and Payne's paths crossed in showbusiness circles over the next few years, but it was not until early 2016 – when he was 22 and she 32 – that the couple started dating discreetly.

At the time, Ms Tweedy was navigating her split from second husband, French businessman Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini, whom she had married in July 2014 following a whirlwind 12-week courtship in July.

That marriage lasted less than 18 months, and while rumours of her romance with Payne began to circulate in February 2016, their first public outing as a couple was not for another three months when, in May, they first stepped on to the red carpet together at the Cannes Film Festival – Payne handsome in black tie and Ms Tweedy stunning in a sequinned dress split to the navel.

Within a couple of months of going 'official', she was pregnant, and in March 2017 – on Mother's Day – their son Bear was born, the proud couple announcing the news in matching Instagram posts showing Payne cuddling his newborn son .

Declaring his 'incredible happiness,' he wrote that he was 'completely in awe of his incredible mother and how she has been the whole way through this', adding she has 'really made my dreams come true.'

A few months later, in an interview, Payne said he had 'always wanted to be a young dad'.

Nonetheless, parenthood caused fault lines in their relationship which could not be overcome: 14 months after Bear was born, the couple announced their separation.

Payne subsequently revealed the birth of their son had put their romance under strain, relating in a podcast interview in June 2022 how Bear's arrival had ' ruined' his relationship 'for all the right reasons'.

Describing Bear as 'a lovely, lovely boy', he praised his ex-partner, saying, 'She is the best mum in the world, I couldn't ask for someone better.'

Certainly, the couple's co-parenting seems to have been largely amicable. Payne lived just three minutes' drive away from Ms Tweedy's home in Buckinghamshire and saw his son frequently.

Both also worked hard to keep their son out of the spotlight, with only occasional glimpses of him on social media posts, although in a rare insight in a 2019 interview Ms Tweedy fondly described herself as 'the strict one' and Payne as 'much softer than me'.

But there were said to be difficulties as a result of Payne's well-documented struggles with alcohol and drugs about which the singer had been increasingly candid over the years. He talked of how he had turned to substance abuse to cope with the pressures of fame.

Ms Tweedy – who has today reverted to her maiden name – has always been vehemently against drug use after losing a childhood friend, budding footballer John Courtney, to a heroin overdose in 2005 when he was just 21.

In the book Cheryl Cole: The Unauthorised Biography, John's mother Angie revealed that the former pop star wrote him a letter begging him not to destroy his life, and Ms Tweedy also spoke out herself about the impact his death had had.

'It put me off drugs for life,' she later said. 'That nightmare devastated all John's family and friends.'

When, in July last year, Payne revealed he had completed 100 days in a Louisiana rehab after hitting 'rock bottom', he thanked his ex for her support. 'More than anything, I want to say thank you to [Bear] and his mum for giving me a little bit of freedom to go and get well in that moment because I had to,' he said in a YouTube video.

His many fans hoped he had successfully battled his demons, and that seemed to be the case: in March he shared a sweet photo – taken from behind – of his son Bear admiring a billboard showcasing with his father's latest music venture. 'I want to be on a billboard one day, Daddy' the caption read.

What's more, with Ms Tweedy touring the country for several months this year with Girls Aloud, Payne was understood to be spending more time with Bear, although it is not known if the boy, now seven, had been introduced to Payne's on-off girlfriend, a 25-year-old American-born influencer called Kate Cassidy.

The couple had been together for two years, and she was with him during his ill-fated trip to Argentina, where he tragically met his death this week.

Thousands of miles away across the Atlantic ocean, meanwhile, Ms Tweedy is distraught with grief for the man she once loved – and desperately sad for the young boy Payne has left without a father.