The late One Direction star Liam Payne has left behind a £24.3m fortune after dying without a will.
Cheryl Tweedy, his former partner and mother of his son, Bear, is legally responsible for Payne’s money, property and possessions after being named an administrator for his estate.
Payne died aged 31 in October last year after falling from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Court documents show that the music industry lawyer Richard Mark Bray has also been given administrator duties.
Tweedy, 41, a former Girls Aloud singer known as Cheryl, could place the fortune in a trust for Bear. Under rules of intestacy in England and Wales, a person’s spouse and then their children, if any, have first claim to the estate.
The gross value of the estate amounts to £28,594,888, according to the letters of administration, while the net value, which is the total after debts and expenses are paid, amounts to £24,279,728.
-A postmortem report said Payne died of multiple traumas and “internal and external haemorrhage” after falling from a balcony of the Casa Sur hotel.
A court in Argentina dropped charges in February of criminal negligence against three of five people charged in connection with Payne’s death.
At the Brit Awards in March, he was remembered with a video montage showing him with his family and a clip from his time on The X Factor and then with One Direction, who won seven gongs at the music awards before they split up.
After his band went on hiatus Payne released his debut solo album, LP1, in December 2019, which included his debut single, Strip That Down, featuring American rapper Quavo, and the songs Polaroid with Lennon Stella and Jonas Blue, and For You with Rita Ora.
Tweedy was in a relationship with Payne between 2016 and 2018.
Before he found success in One Direction, Payne auditioned for The X Factor in 2008 when Tweedy, then Cole, was a judge.
