Three years ago, Zayn Malik couldn’t fathom the idea of leaving One Direction.
Talking to Barbara Walters about whether he — or any of his four band mates, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Harry Styles or Louis Tomlinson — would ever seize the opportunity to go solo, Malik, who was recently in the studio with producer Naughty Boy, was unequivocally opposed to the idea.
“No way. It’s not even like a question. We’d just be like, ‘No, we’re not doing it,” he said.
Walters reminded Malik and the rest of his band members that boy bands were notorious for having short lifespans, and that NSync only lasted five years.
“I think five years is such a short time,” Payne mused.
But five years is exactly what it took for Malik to reach his breaking point. On Wednesday, after half a decade with the band, the 22-year-old officially called it quits. The statement came hot on the heels of cheating rumours that plagued his relationship with fiancee Perrie Edwards and his hiatus from the band’s world tour to recuperate from “stress”.
“I’d like to apologise to the fans if I’ve let anyone down,” the singer said. “But I have to do what feels right in my heart. I am leaving because I want to be a normal 22-year-old who is able to relax and have some private time out of the spotlight.”
Fans seemed to be most concerned with Malik’s welfare, but the fact that his band mates are continuing as a four-piece without him came as a little comfort. Concert-goers now had to accept that they will no longer be getting the full live experience — possibly ever.
‘Emotional thing’
For those planning to attend the sold-out Dubai show on April 4 at The Sevens Stadium, Malik’s decision has been an especially difficult pill to swallow.
“I don’t know what to say. It’s just an emotional thing. We can’t believe that he’s gone,” said Heba Basheer, 17, over the phone. She was speaking to tabloid! tearfully during a free period at school on Thursday morning from Bahrain. Along with Horan, Malik was her favourite member.
“It hurts that I’m not going to see him live — that I’m not going to hear him sing live. Maybe he’s going to go solo, but I’m not going to hear him as a part of One Direction anymore.”
Basheer, along with a few other friends she met on Twitter, are part of a group who are planning a “1D fan project” for the show in Dubai. They have printed and distributed 5,000 posters instructing fans to arrive decked out in neon accessories, including glow sticks, and to download a specific smart phone app to “light up the stadium” by projecting different-coloured lights during different songs.
Afnan Quchari, 18, is another fan involved with the project. She spoke to tabloid! from Saudi Arabia, and said she will be flying to Dubai on April 3 to see the boys.
“We’re currently planning on doing stuff for Zayn during the Dubai show, like chanting his name, or waving his photo around during his solos,” she said. “It’s not going to be the same. I mean, the high notes and stuff — he’s Zayn. They’re never going to be One Direction without Zayn. Ever.”
For the past five years, the band have been moving at a frenetic, arguably unsustainable, pace, often warned by their peers in the industry to slow down before they burn out. After being put together as virtual strangers in 2010 on the X Factor and placing third, they were signed to Simon Cowell’s record label and have released four albums — one for every year since 2011. They have gone on just as many headlining tours.
As Malik said in their documentary film, This Is Us, “The amount of time we’ve been away from home, just to make our band stronger and be successful, is a lot — and there’s no rest. Just go, go, go. Like, you fly from one place to another, to another.”
Singled out
Malik has long been open about his struggle with fame, attention and feelings of being misunderstood. He spoke of being singled out and questioned by airport personnel for an hour during One Direction’s first trip to America, because his “name was flagged up as similar to that of someone they were looking for”. He’s been the subject of racist and Islamophobic comments on social media, and even deleted his Twitter in 2010 due to the “useless opinions and hate” he was receiving.
Shortly after he left the band, it became clear that he was still at the centre of such hateful remarks, including tweets that he had left One Direction to join the terrorist group Daesh.
Despite such adversities, and despite powering through substance abuse rumours in November of last year after he missed a Today Show appearance due to illness, Malik seemed to be in good spirits, taking on a more active role in the band in recent months.
“On the last couple of albums, obviously, I’ve realised that the boys have loved being a part of the writing, and I felt like I was missing out a bit,” he said in a TV special in December. “I made a conscious decision to be like, ‘I want to be more involved with that now.’ I’m enjoying writing the songs, and it doesn’t feel like work when I go into the studio anymore. It’s fun.”
Malik also became more active on social media at the beginning of 2015, interacting more frequently with fans, and after the band kicked off their tour in Australia in February, he tweeted: “Tonight’s first show was amazing. We went away for a while but mind my French, [expletive], it felt good to be on that stage again. Love you peeps.”
That’s why, perhaps, the news of him leaving came as such a shock to many. Asma Mohammad, 21, says she will no longer fly to Dubai from Kuwait for the show. She believes that Malik was forced by his management to leave the band, and that he had just needed some rest.
“I have three tickets for Dubai show, and to be honest I’m not going anymore, because I paid to see [all five members],” she told tabloid! through a direct message on Twitter. “Zayn was the most excited about [the] Dubai show. He tweeted before about that and this is the saddest thing. It’s not the end, but it will never be the same for us.”
Malik tweeted that he “always wanted to go to Dubai” in 2011, and that he “heard it’s incredible” in 2012.
Jomana Ebrahim, 16, will still be attending the show despite her heartbreak.
“I have been bullied in school all day and I am still crying in class about it. Everyone in my class hates One Direction, and they are all teasing me because Zayn quit, but I want those people that call us Directioners ‘drama queens’ or ‘too emotional’ to know that we are all in shock and that we will move on eventually. People should respect us for what we are going through because this is a very important event in our lives,” she said.
“One Direction was the only source of happiness in our lives and they always will be. We will always support the boys because we know all they need right now is support and love from us.”
The band played a show in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Wednesday before the announcement of Malik’s departure was made. It’s believed that Styles, the youngest of the group at 21-years-old, may have shed a few tears, as evidenced by videos of him sounding emotional as he thanked fans for their support over the past five years.
After arriving in South Africa, where Styles and the rest of the boys are set to perform on March 28, he took to Twitter to address the fans with a short message: “All the love as always. H.” Meanwhile, Payne tweeted: “So glad to be in bed after a long and strange 24 hours.”
Another fan, 15-year-old Zainab M., said that Malik’s decision will not only impact the Dubai show next weekend, but her entire life.
“There are no words I could find that could explain how painful it feels. Most people don’t get it, but to the other fans out there, it’s not easy. We watched them grow in front of our eyes for five years, they gave us all the memories and laughs and all those good times. We never expected this to happen so soon, and now that it [has], it hurts so bad,” she said.
“I will love the boys as long as I breathe and I’m proud of having to support them, because we’ve had the best five years of my life. I don’t regret anything.”
