Have One Direction Fans Hounded Liam Payne Into The Waiting Arms Of A Patient Cheryl Fernandez-Versini?

Many One Direction fans were beside themselves with grief upon finding out that Liam Payne could possibly be sharing a bed with older woman Cheryl Fernandez-Versini. Did their relentless hounding of young Liam lead the poor besieged lad directly into a patient Cheryl’s expectant arms?

Due to their very nature, boy bands attract, how shall we say, extremely enthusiastic fans, and there’s not much on god’s green earth more enthusiastic than the One Direction fan base.

Yet, as much as he loves his legion of loyal fans, Liam Payne has something of a difficult relationship with the more hormonal amongst them.

The Inquisitr once asked, “Is Liam Payne terrified of One Direction fans?” Why? Well, because a picture printed in March 2014 appeared to show Payne puffing on a “nicotine stick” as he casually strolled along some run-down pier in Somerset.

Fans of Payne took to their social media accounts and declared hysterically that Liam Payne was not only breaking their hearts by wantonly indulging himself in the vile habit of inhaling nicotine, but that Liam was only smoking in the first instance because he feared becoming yet another victim of the obesity epidemic running rampant and unchecked through every corner of the civilized world.

A chancer calling herself the “Future Mrs. Styles” tweeted, “Dearest @Real_Liam_Payne I’m fat too, but it doesn’t mean I need to smoke to lose weight more.. so please stop smoking.. please??”

And yet another grief-stricken One Direction fan pleaded with Liam Payne to “[p]lease stop smoking. We love you Liam. You’re not fat xx.”

A harassed and hounded Liam took to Twitter soon after, not to justify his bad habits, but to make a desperate plea for fans to back off and stop harassing him outside of his house.

“Please don’t sit outside my house. It’s the one place I get to be myself and not have people taking pictures.”

Home is where the heart is, and it’s only natural that Liam Payne felt his invasive fans were busy breaking his.

Looking perhaps for a little light relief from being a wounded artist, Liam recently hooked up with Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, who at 32, is 10 years his senior and perhaps a mother figure for the young singer.

Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, formerly Cheryl Cole, formerly Cheryl Tweedy, is well loved by an adoring public as a plucky diminutive songbird with the common touch.

Cheryl has often been unfairly criticized by posh types as having an indecipherable guttural accent and carrying the somewhat unsavory reek of fish n’ chips, bingo, greyhounds, fizzy wine, Ford Escorts, and stained tracksuits about her person. But what can you do? Haters gonna hate!

After making her name as a musical maverick in “reality” band Girls Aloud, cheeky Cheryl Tweedy, as she was then known, went on to marry and divorce a famous English footballer and become a (cough) fashionista for young teenage girls everywhere who desperately wanted to know how to dress badly on a budget.

As luck would have it, along the way she was groomed by Simon Cowell to become a judge on The X Factor.

Simon, who has earned himself an enviable reputation as a hard taskmaster and high-trousered tyrant, was smitten with his lump of “Cole” and once confessed all gooey eyed, “She (Cheryl) would come in dressed in her tracksuit and slippers, drop her eyes and play the soulful victim to get around me. She played me. When she walked over, I felt I was the mouse with a beautiful cat. I adored her.”

And perhaps that’s exactly what young Liam sees in this cheeky and common Georgie gal too.

Yet many One Direction fans are just not getting it and have lined up to abuse Cheryl on social media. The irony is, their constant hounding of young Liam is what could have led him to seek solace in the arms of an older, more self-assured woman in the first place — far from the demanding and often neurotic cries of the teenage mob.

Liam’s decision to become romantically involved with what many of his more obsessed fans would view as a predatory cougar was fiercely denounced by many of the more zealous One Direction fans.

One snapped, “Is Liam blind enough to leave Sophia and choose Cheryl??”

And another barked, “Liam and Cheryl has got to be the most disgusting thing ever, I’m scared of him and I hate her, a couple from hell.”

Many One Direction fans also seemed to be of the opinion that the relationship was disgustingly unnatural, and one even growled in block capitals for extra effect, “Repulsive whore. From one bed to the next.”

Yet another Liam Payne seemed to sum up the mood by solemnly declaring, “I’ll tweet about how much I hate Cheryl until my fingers fall off.”

Obviously, some people have far too much time on their hands.

[Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images]