Brit Award 2025 host Jack Whitehall once had a run-in with the late Liam Payne after he mocked him on stage during another of the ceremonies over his romance with supermodel Naomi Campbell
Liam Payne once challenged Jack Whitehall to a fight when an awkward joke about his fling with feisty superstar Naomi Campbell turned sour.
Stand-up comic and Brit Awards 2025 host Jack, 36, is known for his cheeky one-liners and he didn’t disappoint when he fronted the awards back in 2019. Late One Direction star Liam, who was 25 at the time, was said to be having a “mind-blowing” time with the then 48 year-old Naomi.
Liam was due to present an award on stage with model Winnie Harlow and Jack decided to mock his romance with Naomi when he introduced the pair. The embarrassing moment caused Liam to later reveal it had got him in trouble.
Jack announced: “Now it’s time for our next award. To present it, a supermodel and supermodel Naomi Campbell’s current squeeze. His surname’s Payne, which is what he’ll be in a world of if he crosses her – it’s Liam Payne and Winnie Harlow.”
A year and a half after the event, Liam told the Sun that Naomi wasn’t happy about the joke so he wanted to challenge Jack to a fight. But thankfully the singer’s threat was in jest and he said if it went ahead it would be in aid of charity.
Liam apparently said: “Someone I happened to be with that was the person that he mentioned at the Brit Awards went in on him for saying that joke at the Brits. I take it as a joke, it is what it is, but she was not happy. Jack, you got me in a lot of s**t that night. So me and you are going to do a charity boxing match.”
A source also claimed that the supermodel confronted the Brits host: “Naomi marched up to Jack and said, ‘You really are a naughty boy’. The pair joked about it and she saw the funny side of it.”
Speculation of a budding romance between the unlikely couple started when they celebrated the New Year together in Ghana. They were said to have enjoyed a “mind-blowing” time together after that in London and New York. They also commented on each other’s social media posts with flirty exchanges which were picked up by fans.
Liam described her as “perfection in a person” and she lovingly labelled him “a beautiful soul”. They were spotted together at a concert at London’s O2 but by April of that year their relationship appeared to have cooled. A source spoke to The Mirror at the time about their split, saying: “Liam and Naomi had a lot of fun together, they got on well and had a laugh. But it just wasn’t meant to be. They are going to stay friends – there are no hard feelings with either of them.”
Liam went on to date model Maya Henry who he got engaged to. The couple eventually went their separate ways in 2022 with Maya claiming he had cheated on her. The tragic star famously dated Girls Aloud singer Cheryl from 2015 to 2018 and the couple welcomed son Bear.
When the boyband heartthrob fell to his death in October last year at the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires he was in a relationship with American social media influencer Kate Cassidy. Just after his death Naomi commented on a post Nicole Sherzinger, who was Liam’s friend and mentor in X Factor, had shared. Underneath pictures of the star in happier times, Naomi added two white doves emojis as well as a broken heart symbol and hands in prayer.
