Seven months after Liam Payne’s tragic death, former partner Cheryl has been officially named the administrator of the late singer’s $32.2 million estate.
According to court documents filed on May 1, Cheryl – who shares an 8-year-old son named Bear with Payne – and attorney Richard Mark Bray were officially named as the estate’s administrators.
Payne, who died in October after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina, did not leave a will.
According to the documents, the gross value of Payne’s estate in the U.K. is estimated at $38 million, with a net value of around $32.2 million.
Under U.K. inheritance law, estates are typically granted to a legal spouse or the closest blood relative if the deceased was unmarried.
The BBC reports that Cheryl, 41, and Bray will manage the estate but currently lack authority to distribute its assets. In the absence of a spouse or civil partner, U.K. law typically designates children as beneficiaries.
Payne and Cheryl dated from 2016 to 2018 and welcomed their son in 2017. In a public statement following Payne’s death, Cheryl called the loss “an earth-shattering event” and urged the public to remember the man behind the fame.
“Liam was not only a pop star and celebrity, he was a son, a brother, an uncle, a dear friend, and a father to our 7-year-old son,” she wrote. “A son that now has to face the reality of never seeing his father again.”
She added, “Please give Liam the little dignity he has left in the wake of his death to rest in some peace at last.”
At the time of his death, Payne had been in a relationship with influencer Kate Cassidy for nearly two years.
In a March interview on the U.K. morning show “Lorraine,” Cassidy opened up about the grief she’s still processing.
“I’m still working on accepting the fact that he’s not here anymore, so it’s hard for me to refer to him in the past tense,” she said.
“When I do refer to him in the past tense, it almost stings that little bit more. I never would have thought that I would be talking about him in the past tense, so it’s definitely really hard to accept.”
Payne’s sister, Ruth Gibbins, also shared an emotional tribute in April, marking six months since his death.
“I can sometimes hear you laughing at me walking around like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, looking for you everywhere I go,” she wrote.
“I see you, though, you’re always coming through in different ways to put me back on the right path.”
“I can’t process what’s happened and the finality of it, you know I will never stop doing all I can for you. I miss you loudly, quietly and in all the moments in between,” she added.
