Liam Payne hinted at painful cause of Cheryl split after admitting his role in breakup

Liam Payne and Cheryl Cole split in July 2018 after two years of dating and welcoming son Bear together, and Liam went on to explain the cause of their demise

Liam Payne sadly died on Wednesday after falling from a balcony at a hotel in Argentina. The One Direction star was just 31 years old.

He leaves behind his seven-year-old son, Bear, with whom he shared with his ex, Cheryl. Liam and Cheryl split in July 2018, but had been co-parenting the youngster. The former One Direction man previously opened up about what went wrong in their relationship following the birth of their son in March 2017.

"Becoming a dad at such a young age, it's such a difficult thing," he confessed in a documentary at the time titled Ant Middleton and Liam Payne: Straight Talking. "And I think I built fatherhood up so much in my head that it kind of messed me up to start with. I started in a bad place with it," he continued.

He also admitted that he struggled to understand what Cheryl was going through as a new mum. "The one thing I was missing as a man in the relationship I had, was a level understanding about what she was feeling about stuff," he revealed.

Despite moving on from the Geordie singer, Liam insisted that Cheryl remained the most important person in his life at the time. "She's one of the most, if not the most, important people in my life. I'm lucky I have someone who understands what I'm going through," he shared.

Like Liam, Cheryl shot to fame as a teenager on a reality show, winning a spot in Girls Aloud on Popstars: The Rivals in 2002 at just 19. She first encountered Liam in 2008 when he was a 14-year-old hopeful on The X Factor and she was a judge. Their paths intertwined again in 2015 when he returned to perform with One Direction.

Cheryl previously praised Liam as the only man who hasn't cheated on her and has previously shared her perspective. Revealing that after One Direction disbanded, Liam wanted to "settle down and have a family," she told the Times she encouraged him to chase a solo career, "and then it didn't work out."

When asked if Liam had changed his mind about wanting a domestic life, she replied, "You'll have to ask him that." But she confessed he found it challenging to switch from pop star to father as his career skyrocketed.

Like Liam, she admitted to holding no grudges and described their current relationship as "healthy". "There's no animosity whatsoever, she said.

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