Liam Payne tells Cheryl Fernandez-Versini she's his 'favourite woman in the world'

In his first public declaration of love, the One Direction star today wrote a gushing message to Cheryl next to an an old image of the Girls Aloud singer on his Instagram account.

And having missed out on Valentine's Day, the Wolverhampton born pop star included an odd reference to International Women's Day to go with the romantic words.

Directed at Cheryl but visible to his 9.1 million followers, Liam wrote: "Happy #internationalwomensday to my favourite woman in the world hope I make you as happy as u make me X."

Shortly after posting on Instagram Liam sent out a cryptic tweet, apparently pointed towards the internet's many trolls.

Since coming third with One Direction in X-Factor 2010, Bushbury-born Liam has gone onto huge international fame. He now has more than 22m followers on Twitter and reportedly lives in a Surrey mansion worth more than £5m.

In an early sign of chemistry, Liam won praise from fellow reality TV success Cheryl for his remix of her 'I Don't Care' song in 2014.

Speculation over the pair's relationship has been growing over the last fortnight since photos of the superstars together started appearing on their social media accounts.

At 32 Cheryl - who is currently going through a divorce from second husband Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini - is almost ten years Liam's senior.

Cheryl famously broke up from her first husband Ashley Cole due to the England footballer's 'unreasonable behaviour'.