The One Direction lads descended on London's Leicester Square earlier this week to premiere their debut movie, 'This Is Us', and member Liam Payne stepped out hand-in-hand with his new girlfriend.

At the film's official press release on Tuesday, Payne confirmed that he had a new partner and pointed her out to media before telling them: "Yes yes I do [have a new girlfriend]. She's sitting right over there. It's not been long."

He took to his Twitter page earlier today (August 21) to thank his fans for showing his group such great support at the event, but returned to the social networking site shortly after and pointed out that he had seen some really nasty messages about someone he cares about:

"Always sad to get on here to read horrible stuff about someone you care about... There is that old saying tho if you ain't got s**t nice to say then f**k you."

He is now dating old friend Sophia Smith (pictured below with Payne) and it is thought that messages he was referring to are about their new relationship as one Directioner had tweeted: "F**K YOU SOPHIA SMITH!!! Hope that you and my Liam won't be in a relationship for so long!!"

Another wrote: "Forget about Sophia Smith then Follow Me. If she'll reject you on a 23rd time I will shave all her hair off."