Simon Cowell and Cheryl have a fraught history, but put it to one side to honour the loss of the beloved Liam Payne

Cheryl and Simon Cowell once went years without speaking, but let bygones be bygones on the day of Liam Payne’s funeral

Simon Cowell, 65, and Cheryl, 41, reunited at the funeral of Liam Payne on Wednesday. Liam died on 16 October aged just 31, and was finally laid to rest in a touching service held in Amersham, hosted by his family and attended by all his loved ones.

Cheryl and Simon both attended the funeral, connected over their strong personal links to the former One Direction star, despite having issues in the past. At one point, Cheryl and Simon didn’t speak for years after a vicious clash led to a major feud.

The duo’s most major fall out came in 2011, when Cheryl was sacked from X Factor USA just a few weeks after she started the job, with the show not even on air by the time she was booted. Cheryl rocked up in the US after her split from Ashley Cole, and Simon dropped her after she seemed too frazzled to live up to her role.

“My falling-out with Cheryl came soon after her divorce and was a nightmare,” Simon told Radio Times back in 2014. “We were all wound up. There was so much expectation on the show in America and I definitely wasn’t myself. I was uptight.”

Despite working together for years, Simon fired Cheryl from the X Factor USA just weeks after she started the job, leading to a vicious argument ( 
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He then blasted her appearance, claiming she wasn’t the same woman he knew. “When I saw her I didn’t recognise her,” he said, adding, “Literally. The hair and outfit were crazy. Just totally crazy. I asked her manager, ‘What’s she wearing, what’s happened to her hair?'”

“He was defensive about it. I haven’t a clue why she turned up like that. She’d put on a bit of weight, but not loads. That wasn’t the issue. The only way I can describe it is that it wasn’t Cheryl sitting in that seat. She’d lost her confidence.”

Cheryl went on to send Simon a “horrible” text, and she later admitted: “In hindsight he was right because I wasn’t myself. He wasn’t himself either. He was under a lot of strain because it was a new venture. But he handled it wrongly – he got somebody else to sack me.

“I didn’t want to talk to him at the time. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. The sacking came on top of everything else, it was just the cherry on the cake.”

Cheryl and Simon then reportedly went years without speaking, with their relationship seeming to be over for good. She told Elle: “I went through hell and it literally drove me mad. I became so desensitised, you could say terrible things to me and I wouldn’t even think about it.”

After years of tension, however, Simon seemed to get back in Cheryl’s good books after he played Cupid with her and Liam. Having dinner at Simon’s house, Liam admitted that he thought Cheryl was “hot.” Simon seemed to decide to be a matchmaker, and asked Cheryl what she thought about the younger star. Soon enough, the couple started meeting for romantic dates, and they went on to welcome son Bear in March 2017.