Liam Payne is in hot water after his fiancée Maya Henry discovered Payne was allegedly cheating on her via an Instagram fan account.
On Monday, flirty photos surfaced on social media of the One Direction alum pictured with another woman, Aliana Mawla. The images, which were originally shared to Mawla’s Instagram Stories on Sunday, included one of Payne wrapping his arms around Mawla from behind as she takes a selfie. In the other, the two are seen interlocking their hands in a black-and-white photograph. The model and influencer, who has 301k followers on Instagram, previously starred in the singer’s music video for “Familiar” featuring J Balvin in 2018.
Things took a turn when a fan account with the username @payno18 reposted the images to their Instagram page and tagged Henry in the post.
“UPDATE: Liam and Maya look so cute here,” they captioned the post. However, Henry took to the comments section to express her confusion.
“I love all the fans so much but please stop sending me these pictures of my fiancé wrapped around another woman,” the model commented. “This is not me and it’s hard enough knowing this has happened without seeing it. Enough now”.
Liam Payne, 28, and Maya Henry, 21, have had an on-again, off-again relationship since announcing their engagement in August 2020 after two years of dating. In June 2021, Payne confirmed their split less than a year after the proposal, but the pair soon reconciled only two months later.
According to MailOnline, a source has confirmed that Payne and Henry ended their relationship over a month ago and referred to Henry’s comment as “untrue and very misleading”. But that didn’t stop fans from sharing their unfiltered thoughts about Payne’s alleged cheating scandal to social media.
“liam payne cheating on his fiancée and her finding out bc some fan thought it was her in that pic and tagged her in it oh it’s bad,” one person tweeted.
“liam payne cheated on his fiancé and she found out through fanpages on instagram cuz they posted pics thinking it was the two of them together…when it was actually him with another random girl,” shared someone else. “men are so beyond vile i feel so bad for her”.
Payne opened up about his past relationship struggles when he announced his first split from Henry on the Diary of a CEO podcast back in June.
“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.”
Payne said 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.”
Payne 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.
The Independent has contacted Payne and Henry for comment.
