Remembering singer Liam Payne as a dad

Liam Payne may have risen to fame as a talented singer and One Direction star but the “Sunshine” singer will also be remembered as a father.
Payne died Oct. 16 following a fall from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, according to local police. The English singer was 31.
Following Payne’s unexpected death, his former One Direction bandmate Louis Tomlinson shared a heartfelt message to Payne’s son Bear in an Oct. 17 Instagram post.
“I want you to know that if Bear ever needs me I will be the Uncle he needs in his life and tell him stories of how amazing his dad was,” Tomlinson wrote in part in a lengthy caption.
Payne became a dad in March 2017 when he and his former partner, fellow singer Cheryl Cole, welcomed Bear, who is now 7.
When Payne announced he and Cole were separating in a July 2018 post on X, he added, “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.”
In an Aug. 29 Snapchat video, on his 31st birthday, Payne opened up about his young son, whom he called his “mini me.”
“I didn’t get any dad socks yet, though, but I’m gonna speak to my son in a little bit, which I’m really excited about. Bless him. He’s so big now,” Payne said. “He’s a big boy and he looks like a mini me.”
Last July, Payne also opened up about embracing fatherhood after taking a break and finding sobriety in a YouTube video.
“Time with Bear’s been really, really great, honestly,” Payne said. “More than anything, I want to say thank you to him and his mum for giving me a little bit of freedom to go and get well in that moment because I had to.”
“There’s no point in trying to be a dad when you’ve got nothing to teach and I don’t think up until this point, I really had much to say to him other than just [what] came from deeply and loving him very deeply,” Payne continued, praising his son as a “wonder” who is “far more smarter” than his dad.
As a parent, Payne also revealed in a June 2018 podcast interview with “The Diary Of A CEO” that he wouldn’t necessarily stop his son from following his footsteps into the music or entertainment industry.
“I want to give him a chance to be Bear first before he has to be, ‘oh, you’re mum and dad are so-and-so’ and I made my choice to be where I was at 14, 15, so I figure he can make his own choice then, too,” he said, adding, “I would never stop him doing something he wanted to do. I’d let him know the risks and I’d tell him what was going to happen.”