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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Lucy Domachowski

Liam Payne's brutal response to ex Maya calling him her 'fiancé' after cheating claims

Liam Payne isn’t pulling any punches after allegations surfaced accusing him of cheating on his fiancée Maya Henry.

The former One Direction star’s alleged infidelity was reportedly discovered via an Instagram fan account.

Flirty photos surfaced online where Liam, 28, could be seen wrapping his arms around and holding hands with another woman.

That other woman was Aliana Mawla, a 24-year-old model and influencer who previously starred in Liam’s music video for his song ‘Familiar’. She shared the snaps with her 301,000 followers on her Instagram Story on Sunday.

A fan account with the username @payno18 reposted the pictures and tagged Maya Henry, believing the woman in them was her. “UPDATE: Liam and Maya look so cute here,” they captioned the post.

But things took a turn when Maya took to the comments to express her confusion.

Their romance began in 2019 with the pair pictured together at a series of public events, and they announced their engagement in August 2020 (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Fri)
The former One Direction star’s alleged infidelity was discovered via an Instagram fan account (Getty Images for Elton John AIDS)

“I love all the fans so much but please stop sending me these pictures of my fiancé wrapped around another woman,” the model wrote. “This is not me and it’s hard enough knowing this has happened without seeing it. Enough now”.

Liam, it seems, did not take kindly to being outed for the alleged unfaithfulness nor being referred to as Maya’s fiancé, and delivered a brutal response via his representative.

His agent confirmed that Liam and Maya, 21, ended their relationship over a month ago and said: "Maya’s comments referring to Liam as her fiancé are untrue and very misleading."

Liam and Maya's relationship was up and down over the past year after the One Direction star broke off their engagement last June, before reuniting just weeks later.

A heartbroken Maya pleaded with fans to stop tagging her in the pictures (payno18/Instagram)
Liam was snapped wrapping himself around Aliana (payno18/Instagram)
Flirty images surfaced online (payno18/Instagram)

Before the reunion, it appeared the singer had expressed his regret over their break-up as he posted a few cryptic messages about love, regret and Maya onto his Instagram.

Their romance began in 2019 with the pair pictured together at a series of public events, and they announced their engagement in August 2020 with Liam proposing with a £3million ring.

But the couple actually first met during a meet-and-greet with One Direction when Maya was just 15.

The singer was previously in a relationship with former Girls Aloud member and X Factor host Cheryl Cole, 38, between 2016 to 2019. Their son, Bear, was born in March 2017.

When he first split from Maya in June last year, Liam opened up about his past relationship struggles on the Diary of a CEO podcast.

Liam was snapped getting cosy with Aliana Mawla (Aliana Mawla/Instagram)
Liam Payne has called it quits with his fiancé (GC Images)

“I feel like, more than anything at this point, I’m more disappointed in myself [that] I keep on hurting people. That annoys me,” he told podcast host Steven Bartlett.

“I’ve just not been very good at relationships and I know what my pattern of things is with relationships at this point. I’m just not very good at them so I just need to work on myself before I put myself on to somebody else.”

Liam admitted the same thing had happened in his last relationship and he felt he “wasn’t giving a very good version of [himself] anymore”.

“I can honestly say I feel better out of it,” he said. “I didn’t feel good doing what I did but it had to happen. That’s just the corniest way of saying it ‘was the best for both of us’ – whatever, cool, nice story, bro.”

He added: “I know it was a problem so I need to sort myself. I already feel good. It has already got me more concentrated and I hope she’s happy.”

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