Liam Payne, the late singer from One Direction, left behind assets valued at more than £24 million ($32 million) without a known will, according to official records.
Cheryl Tweedy, a former Girls Aloud singer and Payne’s ex-partner, has been appointed as an administrator for his estate. Tweedy, mother of Payne’s eight-year-old son, Bear, assumes legal responsibility for his fortune. The couple was in a relationship from 2016 to 2018 but never married. Under U.K. intestacy laws, a person’s spouse and children are prioritized in estate claims.
Music industry lawyer Richard Mark Bray has also been assigned administrative duties. Court documents show Payne’s estate’s gross value is £28,594,888 ($37,956,568), which is reduced to approximately £24,279,728 ($32,222,598) after debts and expenses.
Payne died on Oct. 16 last year at age 31 after a fall from a third-floor room at the Casa Sur hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Toxicology reports indicated traces of alcohol, cocaine, and a prescription antidepressant in his system. The cause of death was determined to be “polytrauma” resulting from multiple injuries and internal and external bleeding, according to a postmortem.
The BRIT Awards in March featured a video tribute to Payne, showcasing clips from his time on The X Factor and with One Direction, which won seven awards at the event before their 2015 hiatus.
In the mid-2010s, One Direction, comprising Payne, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, and Niall Horan, became a global pop phenomenon. The band achieved four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, six top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, and billions of streams, alongside four sold-out world tours.
Following the group’s hiatus, Payne embarked on a solo career in 2017 with “Strip That Down,” featuring Quavo, which peaked at No. 10 on the Hot 100 and No. 3 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart. His debut album, “LP1,” was released in December 2019.
