Liam and Cheryl's love that became a true friendship

After their romance ended, Liam Payne and Cheryl Tweedy parted on good terms and shared a mutual respect as they cared for their son

- LEO ROBERTS

When a 14-year-old Liam Payne first auditioned for The X Factor in 2008, he could never have predicted that one of the people judging him, Cheryl Tweedy, would one day become the mother of his child.

Despite his tender age, Liam was clearly determined to make an impression on the Girls Aloud star, memorably giving her a cheeky wink as he crooned the Frank Sinatra classic, Fly Me To The Moon.

The flirty gesture, timed to coincide with the line, “In other words, baby kiss me”, clearly struck a chord with Cheryl.

“I like you, I think you’re really cute,” she responded. “I think you’ve got charisma and you give us that little cheeky wink.”

Liam didn’t make it past the judges’ houses stage of the competition that year, but he returned to the show in 2010, where he famously became a member of One Direction.

The rest, as they say, is now music history.

Eight years after that very first meeting, Liam — by then one-fifth of the biggest boyband on the planet — left both fans and the world’s media stunned when he and Cheryl dropped the bombshell that they were now officially a romantic item.

At 32, Cheryl was 10 years Liam’s senior and had already been married twice — first to footballer Ashley Cole, from 2006 to 2010, and then to French restaurateur Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini, who she was still in the process of divorcing when she and Liam got together.

Liam, meanwhile, was newly single after splitting from girlfriend and former schoolfriend Sophia Smith, who he dated from 2013 to 2015.

Rumour has it that love first blossomed at the 2015 X Factor final, which was the night when One Direction last performed together. During an ad break, Cheryl and Liam were pictured in an embrace, however, at the time, the sheer improbability of the pair becoming an item kept any speculation at bay.