Payne shared son, Bear Grey, 7, with his ex, singer Cheryl.
Outside of being a famed musician, Liam Payne was a proud father.
The 31-year-old singer, who came to fame during his time with the boyband One Direction, welcomed a son, Bear, in March 2017 with singer Cheryl Cole.
And while the pair went their separate ways just a year later in 2018, Payne remained an active part of Bear’s life, often speaking about his son in interviews and sharing what it was like being a young dad.
Payne, who died after falling from his fourth-floor balcony at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Wednesday, spoke about the inspiration for his son’s name on The Late Late Show with James Corden in September 2017.
The singer said that as a newborn, his son made a rumbling noise in his sleep, which led to him being assessed by specialists. Finally, one doctor said, “There’s nothing wrong with him. He just likes to make a lot of noise.”
“So he just became Bear,” Payne said on the show.
Making Music For Bear
In a 2018 interview with PEOPLE, Payne, who had launched a solo music career after One Direction broke up in 2015, reflected on the unique joy of getting to make music for his son.
“For me, I love making great music for my fans. But when you make something that your son loves, it’s the best thing ever,” he said at the time.
Payne also described what it was like to become a young dad, emphasizing that it was something he’d always wanted.
“I always wanted to be a young dad, but I didn’t really expect that I’d ever be in this place,” he added. “I had my son at a young age, and 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. 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.”
Payne also reflected on how quickly Bear was growing up, telling the outlet, “He was already huge when he was born. I walked past a baby in the park and was like, ‘Mine was never that small!’ He was always massive. I look at him, like, ‘Where’s my little baby gone already?'”
Co-Parenting With Cole
Payne was very transparent about his co-parenting relationship with Cheryl Cole, whom he first met when she was a judge on the show that made him famous, The X Factor, before they reconnected and started dating years later.
After splitting from the English singer and television personality, who rose to fame in 2002 while competing on ITV’s reality show Popstars: The Rivals before joining the group Girls Aloud, Payne informed fans that despite their split, the pair was focused on their son.
“It’s been a tough decision for us to make,” Payne wrote in a tweet to fans. “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.”
Speaking about navigating his family while no longer with his son’s mother, Payne explained that at the time Bear was living in the U.K. with Cole.
“Babies want their mom; I would never have wanted to get in the way of that,” Payne said that same year. “It was actually easier to go out on the road just knowing he wanted his mom. Now he looks at me and points at me like, ‘Here’s this fun guy!’ He knows.”
In 2022, he told PEOPLE that he saw Bear several times a week.
“I see him two times a week, three times a week sometimes,” he said at the time. “And I make sure when I see him, he has 100 percent of my time.”
Billboard Dad
In March, Payne shared a rare snap of his son looking at a billboard with his face on it.
“I want to be on a billboard one day daddy 🐻 ❤️,” he captioned it.
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The sweet moment wasn’t the latest Payne shared of his son, whose face he and Cole had opted to not share photos of publicly.
A Snapchat video taken on his 31st birthday in August has since resurfaced, in which he shared what would turn out to be a final message about his only son.
“I didn’t get any dad socks yet,” Payne quipped in the clip shared by Daily Mail. “But I am going to speak to my son in a little bit, which I’m really excited about. Bless him.”
As for his thoughts on Bear, the former boy bander gushed, “He’s so big now. He’s a big boy, and he looks like a mini-me, as if we need any more me in the world.”
@dailymail “We need you here now daddy” – Liam Payne shares emotional words about his son, Bear ❤️🕊️ #liampayne #bear #cherylcole #emotional #rip ♬ you not the same – tilekid
Payne added, “I can see a lot of myself in him. He did something really cute this week that I have to mention. He was like, ‘Oh, we need here now, Daddy.’ Bless him. Made me want to cry.”