Liam Payne Was Embroiled in Bitter Legal Fight With Ex When He Died

Prior to his untimely death in Argentina on Wednesday, One Direction’s Liam Payne, 31, was in the middle of a legal spat with his ex-fiancée Maya Henry.

On Monday, The Sun reported that Henry, 23, had lawyered up in an attempt to stop Payne from constantly messaging her family and friends.

“Maya Henry issued a cease and desist last week to Liam Payne following the emergence of new and concerning information…She has retained attorneys Marco Crawford and Daniel Cerna to represent her. At this time, that is her only comment on the matter,” a spokesperson for Henry told the tabloid.

Henry and Payne called it quits in 2022, and recently she opened up about Payne’s behavior on her TikTok.

In an Oct. 6 video, Henry details the lengths Payne would go to message her.

“Ever since we broke up, he messages me, will blow up my phone,” Henry told her followers. She goes on to allege he would do this from different phone numbers, new iCloud accounts, and over email. “Each time I see a new one pop up on my phone I’m like, ‘Oh here we go again,’” she added.

The messaging wasn’t just limited to Henry but also her mother. “But he’ll blow up my mom’s phone. Is that normal behavior to you?” she asked.

In May, Henry released a novel called Looking Forward that was inspired by her own life. In it, she details a traumatic abortion experience.

“If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have done it,” Henry told People about the incident. “But then also, if I were to have made a different decision, then I would’ve lost the person that I loved.”

In an eerie turn of events, during a recent podcast interview this week, Henry discussed pushback she had gotten from one of Payne’s friends about releasing her book.

According to Henry, the friend told her not to release it and said Payne wasn’t “doing well.” “If something happens to him, not only are you gonna blame yourself, but the whole world’s gonna blame you,” Henry recalled the friend telling her.

Henry has yet to comment on Payne’s death apart from a representative telling DailyMail.com that “she is obviously in shock.”