Naomi Campbell reacted to Liam Payne’s tragic death five years after they were rumored to have briefly dated.
The supermodel took to Instagram Friday to leave a message on her friend Nicole Scherzinger’s post paying tribute to the former One Direction member.
“🕊️💔🕊️🙏🏾,” Campbell, 54, simply commented beneath photos of Payne, the Pussycat Dolls frontwoman and their fellow “Building the Band” judge Kelly Rowland.
The fashion icon and the “Strip That Down” singer, who had a 23-year age gap, reportedly dated for four months in 2019.
They first sparked romance rumors that January after leaving flirty comments on each other’s Instagram posts.
“Perfection in a person … don’t give me those eyes,” Payne wrote to Campbell at the time.
She went on to call him a “Beautiful Soul ❤️,” to which he cheekily replied, “takes one to know one 😘.”
The British catwalker, who was 48 at the time, and the English crooner, who was 25, were seen later that month attending Nigerian artist Davido’s concert in London.
They hung out again at a restaurant in Ghana in February 2019 and later at private London club Annabel’s.
However, the pair’s whirlwind romance came to a halt that April, with a source telling the Sun that Campbell made the decision to “let things fizzle out.”
Both stars were questioned about their rumored relationship several times, but they stayed tight-lipped.
Andy Cohen asked Payne to “confirm or deny” the romance during a December 2019 episode of “Watch What Happens Live,” to which the “Teardrops” singer decided to “plead the fifth.”
While it is unclear whether Campbell and Payne stayed in touch after their brief fling, he remained close with their mutual friend Scherzinger, 46, and even texted the “Sunset Boulevard” star on the day he died.
Scherzinger, who helped form One Direction with Simon Cowell as a judge on “The X Factor” in 2010, mourned Payne’s death in her emotional Instagram post Friday.
“I will forever cherish and treasure the time we shared together, from fifteen years ago when One Direction was born, right up until just a few weeks ago,” she wrote in part.
The “Don’t Cha” singer added that the late pop star “brought so much joy, light, and laughter to the lives of those” who knew him.
Payne died on Oct. 16 after falling three stories from his hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was 31.
The former boy bander — who had previously been open about his struggles with substance abuse and mental health — had cocaine, crack, benzodiazepine and a drug cocktail known as “pink cocaine” in his system at the time of his death, according to his autopsy report.
Several of Payne’s family members and close friends, including his former One Direction bandmates, have released statements mourning the loss.
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