In a cease and desist letter sent by Maya Henry to Liam Payne just a week before the singer’s death (in Buenos Aires on October 16), Henry’s lawyers claimed the singer had “repeatedly sent unwanted and disturbing images and videos to Maya Henry and members of Maya’s family.”
The alleged images include genitals and multiple other videos of Liam Payne performing sexual acts.
The notice also accuses Payne of “actively communicating” with a third party to distribute “private visual material” depicting his ex-girlfriend in a “private manner.”
According to the letter, Henry received a direct message on Instagram on October 6 from a woman who claimed to know the former One Direction member . She said she and Payne had started communicating years ago.
Page Six reviewed a copy of the message, in which the unnamed individual alleged: “The main reason I reached out was because he recently started bothering me with emails and when I asked who it was, he started asking if I wanted to see nude pictures of his current girlfriend.” Liam Payne’s current girlfriend is Kate Cassidy.
The woman told Henry she had said “absolutely no” to Payne about receiving photos of his ex, adding that she wanted to let Henry “know that he had asked for it”.
She claims that, according to text messages obtained by Page Six , Cassidy once contacted her and asked why her phone number was blocked from Payne’s.
“I stopped responding to him for a while and he messaged me on my iCloud account, a few different phone numbers as well as on my Snapchat account,” the woman continued to allege in the message to Henry.
Henry’s lawyers said they would take “criminal action” or file a civil lawsuit against the Night Changes singer if he “defames, harasses or threatens” her or her family. The lawyers also noted that Henry would seek unspecified damages.
Before his death, Liam Payne said he felt “extremely overwhelmed” by all the legal issues he was facing. Henry also recently began going public with allegations of abuse she experienced while dating the singer.
In September 2024, Maya Henry – who dated Payne from 2018 to 2022 – claimed that the singer continued to stalk and contact her after their breakup.
“Since we broke up, he’s been texting me not only from his number but from multiple other numbers as well,” Henry shared via TikTok at the time.
Henry also claimed in a podcast interview, released on October 14, that Payne used his addiction problems to try to manipulate her.
“He’s been texting me since we broke up, always toying with death and saying, ‘Okay, I’m going to die. I’m not doing well.’ One time I asked him to do something for me and he didn’t do it. Liam texted my mom, ‘I’m not doing well, have Maya contact me,’ because I wasn’t responding,” Henry said on The Internet Is Dead podcast .
Payne’s death is still under investigation in Argentina.
Prosecutors recently ruled out suicide, noting that Payne may have been unconscious before falling from the third-floor balcony of the CasaSur Palemo hotel and therefore “did not know what he was doing or be aware of it.”
A toxicology report found that Payne had been taking multiple medications, which contributed to his depressed mental state at the time of his death. Several witnesses also saw the singer acting “unusual” in his final hours.
A previous guest reported seeing Payne smashing a laptop in the hotel lobby after receiving an email that appeared to upset him.
So far, three people have been charged in connection with the death of the former One Direction boy band member: Payne’s friend – whose identity has not been revealed, hotel staff and a drug dealer.
Earlier this month, Page Six reported that Liam Payne’s body had been flown back to the UK for burial. The former X Factor contestant has a 7-year-old son named Bear with his ex-girlfriend Cheryl Cole.
