Cheryl Tweedy hasn’t publicly dated anyone since splitting from Liam Payne four years ago – after revealing the One Direction star was the only man who was never unfaithful to her.
Liam fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina on Wednesday aged 31, leaving behind his seven-year-old son Bear, who he shared with the Girls Aloud star, 41.
In a frank interview published in The Sunday Times’ Style magazine in 2018, shortly after their split, the mother-of-one was quoted as telling journalist Decca Aitkenhead how Liam ‘is the only man who has ever been faithful to her’.
The pop star said she had been disappointed by every important man in her life, including her father, brother and ex-husbands, leaving her with ‘zero’ interest in a new relationship.
‘I think I love too easily,’ she admitted. ‘I think I tolerate too much. I don’t set clear enough boundaries in the beginning.’
Cheryl Tweedy’s been left to raise her seven-year-old son Bear without his father after the sudden death of Liam Payne , aged just 31. Pictured, Cheryl and Liam together in 2016
Calling her son ‘the man of her dreams’, she said she would happily be single for ever. ‘I do seriously think I might be, I do,’ she told the publication.
‘I would never ever say never, obviously, but I have zero – I tell you, zero –desire to start up a new relationship.’
Since her relationship with Liam – which began in early 2016, when he was 22 and she 32, and ended in July 2018 – Cheryl hasn’t publicly dated anyone.
She’s also gone so far as previously declaring she didn’t need a man to expand her family – instead preferring the idea of using a sperm donor.
In 2020, the singer said she felt she was running out of time to find a partner and planned to have ‘more than one’ child with fertility treatment.
‘If time was on my side and I was in my twenties, yeah, I would wait and consider more options, or wait for somebody I felt was right,’ she told The Times Magazine.
‘You could meet somebody and for that year it feels incredible, but there is never a guarantee because there are so many variables that can happen. Life is a funny old game.’
Her previous relationships include her first marriage to footballer Ashley Cole, which was rocked by claims of his infidelity, while her second appeared to fare no better after she hinted that ex-husband Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini cheated on her.
Cheryl first met footballer Ashley when they both moved into the same North London apartment block in 2004 and after dating, the couple married in July 2006 after a year-long engagement.
Although her maiden name is Cheryl Tweedy, after her marriage to Ashley, Cheryl Cole is the star’s most famous name. The marriage was a tumultuous one that went on to be rocked by a number of infidelity allegations.
Cheryl and Ashley split in 2010 and since their divorce, the former Chelsea defender has been in a relationship with the Italian model Sharon Canu and the pair have two children together.
She met her second husband Jean-Bernard at Cannes Film Festival in 2014 and after dating for three months, the pair tied the knot in July of the same year on Macaroni Beach in Mustique.
After months of speculation, Cheryl confirmed that she had split with Liam (pictured together) on Twitter in July 2018
In March 2016, they became ‘Instagram official’ and months later, made their first public appearance at Cannes Film Festival and after more rumours, it was confirmed that Cheryl was pregnant with their son Bear (pictured in 2019)
Cheryl and Jean-Bernard were married for 18 months, between July 2014 and October 2016, when their divorce was finalised and soon after the death of his father.
Speaking about the demise of their relationship, he said: ‘When something ends, it is always difficult. Emotionally it’s complicated and hard, especially when it is publicised all over the world with the wrong facts.
‘I had everything up in the air – the grief of my father’s death, difficulty in my personal life, building a new business. It was overwhelming and complicated to deal with; I’m not different to anyone else.’
According to The Sun, following Cheryl’s comment that Liam was the only man who has ever been faithful to her, Jean-Bernard told a friend: ‘I never cheated and I did everything I could to keep my marriage as it is sacred to me. Trust me, if I had cheated it would have been on the court papers.’
After months of speculation, Cheryl confirmed that she had split with Liam on Twitter in July 2018.
The pair met when Liam auditioned for The X Factor back in 2008 and years later, rumours emerged in 2016 when Liam shared a picture of a tattoo on his hand, thought to be a tribute to Cheryl’s giant rose tattoo on her lower back and posterior.
In March 2016, they became ‘Instagram official’ and months later, made their first public appearance at Cannes Film Festival and after more rumours, it was confirmed that Cheryl was pregnant with their son Bear.
She wrote: ‘On Wednesday 22nd March, Liam and I became parents to an incredibly beautiful, healthy baby boy, weighing 7lb 9oz and looking like a dream. Although he still doesn’t have a name he is already stealing hearts.
Her previous relationships include her first marriage to footballer Ashley Cole (pictured together), which was rocked by claims of his infidelity
Cheryl met her second husband Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini at Cannes Film Festival in 2014 and after dating for three months
The pair met when Liam auditioned for The X Factor back in 2008 and years later, rumours emerged in 2016 when Liam shared a picture of a tattoo on his hand, thought to be a tribute to Cheryl’s giant rose tattoo on her lower back and posterior
‘We are all madly in love and overwhelmingly happy with our little arrival. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers around the world. A day that now has a different meaning to me forever.’
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 Cheryl’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 Cheryl 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.
Cheryl and Liam Payne at the 38th Brit Awards in London in 2018
Cheryl 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 Cheryl 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 Cheryl 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 passed away this week after plunging to his death aged 31 from his hotel balcony in Buenos Aires.
