Liam Payne knew what it was like to grow up in the public eye, and when it came to his son Bear’s upbringing, he felt faced with a difficult dilemma.

The One Direction star, who died tragically last month at the age of 31, first auditioned for The X Factor when he was just 14. More or less overnight, the ordinary teenager from Wolverhampton saw his life change forever, and it wasn’t long until his name was being screamed in stadiums all across the globe.

But fame from a young age came with a unique set of challenges. When he and his ex-girlfriend Cheryl welcomed Bear to the world in 2017, his birth was met with a flurry of headlines and countless congratulatory messages from fans who’d followed Liam’s career since day one.

New dad Liam, just 23 years old at the time of Bear’s birth, and Cheryl did everything they could to protect their little boy from the glare of the spotlight they themselves had become so accustomed to. With this in mind, a few years before his untimely death, Liam spoke out about the ‘tricky’ conundrum he would face, should Bear ever want to follow in his footsteps, and the sweet wish mum Cheryl has for his future.

During a 2021 appearance on The Diary of a CEO podcast, Liam was quizzed by host Steven Bartlett about how he would feel about young Bear one day pursuing international stardom. Liam replied: “This is a tricky one! I think his mum’s hoping he’s going to become some sort of yoga person. His mum’s very chill these days. He’s got the best advice from the parents around him in the long run, I guess.

“I dunno… obviously we’ve protected his identity to start off with. That’s not being pretentious or anything other than the fact I want to give him a chance to be Bear first before he has to be your mum and dad are so-and-so. I made my choice to be where I was at 14/15 so I figure he can make his own choice then too.”

He continued: “We’ll have a good discussion about it, a long discussion because I know what effects that can have too. But I would never stop him from doing something he wanted to do. I’d let him know the risks and I’d tell him what was going to happen better than that.”

Liam also shared that he would love Bear to do ‘something that he enjoys doing every day’, adding: “I say that lightly because I think everything that you do – depending on what kind of person you are – becomes annoying at a point. I used to think my dad’s job was the best job ever, building aeroplanes like adult Lego, but my dad’s like, ‘Do not end up in that bloody factory’.”

According to Liam, his own parents, Geoff and Karen, likely had ‘no idea what [he] was signing up for’ when he first walked into that audition room. He reflected: “Would they change it? Probably not, but they would change some of the things that happened in between, 100 per cent.”

A month after his shock passing, the prosecutor’s office confirmed that three people have been charged in connection with Liam’s death in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The singer-songwriter died on October 16 after falling from a third-floor balcony at the Casa Sur Palermo Hotel.

The three suspects are now under formal investigation, and prosecutors have stated the crimes were punishable by a prison sentence of up to 15 years on conviction. It’s also been confirmed that one of the suspects included a hotel worker. In their third statement since the tragedy, the public prosecutors revealed that only alcohol, cocaine and an anti-depressant were found in Liam’s system.