Seven months after Liam Payne fell to his death in Buenos Aires, the former One Direction star’s estate has been settled. According to reports in The Guardian and BBC News, Payne did not have a will in place at the time of his death, so his $32.3 million worth of assets and property will automatically be overseen by his former partner Cheryl Cole along with music-industry lawyer Richard Mark Bray.
Per the BBC, U.K. law dictates that if an individual does not have a will written or have a legal partner, any living children would inherit their estate. Payne dated Cole, a former singer in Girls Aloud, from 2016 to 2018, and together they had a son named Bear, who is now 8 years old. Because Bear is a minor, Cole and Bray have been named administrators of Payne’s remaining wealth, though they apparently have limited authority over the money and can’t distribute it. Cole could, however, place the money in a trust for Bear, The Guardian reports.
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Payne’s tragic death in October sent shock waves through the music industry and among One Direction fans after the 31-year-old fell from a third-floor hotel balcony in Argentina. According to prosecutors, a toxicology report found cocaine, alcohol, and antidepressants in his system at the time of his death. While Argentinian authorities charged three people — a friend and two hotel employees — with manslaughter, those charges have since been dropped. A hotel employee and a local waiter, meanwhile, are still accused of supplying cocaine to Payne days before he died and face up to 15 years in prison, according to CNN.
