The $29 million estate of Liam Payne, the late One Direction singer who died after falling from a balcony at a Buenos Aires hotel in 2024, will go entirely to his son, according to court documents made public this week.
Payne, who made millions at a young age while performing with the wildly successful boy band, died in October 2024 with no will. Because he left no instructions for the handling of his estate, the total amount — recently listed as $28.9 million in the latest Letters of Administration, reflecting the settlement of further debts and costs — is being administered under British intestacy rules.
In May, the singer’s former partner, named Cheryl in court documents, was made administrator of his estate alongside attorney Richard Mark Bray. Payne and Cheryl shared a son, Bear, who was 8 years old at the time of his father’s death.
Court documents obtained via the British government’s probate search website show that the gross value of the One Direction star’s U.K. estate total was at $38 million with a net value coming down to approximately $32.2 million. Under U.K. law, the estate of a person who dies without a will passes to their lawful spouse, or, if they were not married, to their nearest blood relative — in Payne’s case, Bear Grey Payne.
The BBC reports that the two administrators “manage the money, but they currently have limited authority and cannot distribute it.” Bear is expected to receive a portion of the funds soon, with the remainder disbursed on his 18th birthday.
Cheryl, 42, released a statement following Payne’s death, which occurred on October 16, 2024, when he fell from the balcony of the Casa Sur Hotel in the Palermo neighborhood while intoxicated. He had traveled to Argentina with his girlfriend to renew a visa and attend fellow One Direction alumnus Niall Horan’s concert at the city’s Movistar Arena.
Payne fell to his death just after 5 p.m. on a Wednesday evening. His body was taken to the city’s judicial morgue, where an autopsy determined that the cause of death was polytrauma with internal and external hemorrhage.
Two and a half months after Payne’s death, five individuals were charged in connection with the incident, including a man who claimed to be a close friend of the pop star and multiple staffers at the Casa Sur Hotel.
