Millions of fans were heartbroken when One Direction confirmed their hiatus in August
2015. Although sources claimed it was just a temporary break, they have yet to re-emerge
or release new music as a group. What made them call it quits? Here's the lowdown on
why One Direction broke up.
When Zayn Malik left the group, it was evidently quite abrupt. According to his former bandmate
Liam Payne, Malik left One Direction right in the middle of a tour in March 2015. In
a statement, Malik announced,
"My life with One Direction has been more than I could ever have imagined. But, after
five years, I feel like it is now the right time for me to leave the band. I'd like to
apologize to the fans if I've let anyone down, 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."
Even in 2019, Harry Styles still didn't sound too pleased with this development:
"Yeah, I mean, it was, uh…I mean, it was hard, you know?"
Malik announced his exit just days after he was photographed canoodling with a woman who
wasn't his then-fiancée, Little Mix singer Perrie Edwards. But the woman in question,
Love Island's Lauren Richardson, said that nothing romantic happened between them.
Days later, another woman told the Daily Mail that she hooked up with Malik in Thailand,
a claim that he vehemently denied. Although Malik didn't cite the accusations as his reason
for leaving the band, sources told People magazine that he couldn't handle the intense
scrutiny that came with stardom.
Part of One Direction's appeal was the fact that they seemed so tight…but perhaps they
weren't really all that close in real life. Were all the good times just for the camera?
In 2019, Liam Payne told GQ Hype,
"[Zayn] didn’t even say goodbye, if I am being honest. It was a really sordid scenario,
from our side certainly. A bit strange. It’s difficult."
In 2016, Malik told Billboard,
"I had every intention of remaining friends with everybody, but I guess certain phone
numbers have changed and I haven’t received calls from a lot of people. I’ve reached
out to a few of them and not got a reply. Certain people have pride issues, but it’s
stuff you overcome in time."
But he contradicted himself two years later, telling GQ,
"I didn't really, like, make any friends from the band. I just didn't do it. It's not something
that I'm afraid to say. I deﬁnitely have issues trusting people."
Payne opened up further about tensions within the band during his interview with GQ Hype,
"We had our differences throughout the whole experience with some things. I still think
about some stuff that was said and done that now I would do differently, but then that's
all part of growing up. Being in One Direction was such a schoolyard mentality somehow – the
One Direction University, I call it."
Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson reportedly had one of One Direction's biggest in-band
beefs. The boys were seemingly super-close after The X Factor, and they even lived together
in the early days of the band. But something evidently went wrong sometime around 2012,
at least, if The Sun can be believed. A supposed insider told the tabloid,
"Apart from Harry and Louis, no one knows exactly what caused the falling out...But
it was very serious and their friendship has never recovered. Everyone involved in the
band is well aware of the animosity between them. It's been central to everything else
that came next with the band because there was suddenly a massive divide."
According to this shadowy source, their alleged distaste for one another even impacted how
the band got around, because Styles refused to travel on the same jet with Tomlinson.
As the source put it,
"Harry insisted there were always two modes of transport, even when it came to private
jets. The official reason given was that Harry didn’t like the fact Louis, Liam and Zayn
smoked on board. But it was something much more personal. For the making of their last
three albums, they never spent any time together in the studio as a band."
Of course, this is The Sun we're talking about here, so we'd take all of this with a grain
of salt.
Did creative differences have anything to do with One Direction's split? Shortly after
Zayn Malik left the project in 2015, he told Fader,
"I wasn’t 100 percent behind the music. It wasn’t me. It was music that was already
given to us, and we were told this is what is going to sell to these people. As much
as we were the biggest, most famous boy band in the world, it felt weird. We were told
to be happy about something that we weren't happy about."
Malik also told Billboard in 2016,
"The other boys’ taste was generally indie rock. It’s good music, but I don’t f---
with it. That was never cool where I was from."
The band's divergent musical tastes are pretty clear when you take a look at their solo efforts.
Harry Styles went the "dad rock" route with the epic "Sign of the Times," telling Rolling
Stone,
"I didn't want to write 'stories.' I wanted to write my stories, things that happened
to me. The number-one thing was I wanted to be honest. I hadn't done that before."
"I've always found writing to be really therapeutic. And when I sit down to write a song I don't
usually think about it coming out."
Meanwhile, Niall Horan had a massive radio hit with the bluesy "Slow Hands." Liam Payne
went for a hip-hop pop vibe with "Strip that Down," and Louis Tomlinson opted for straightforward
pop with solo efforts like "Miss You."
So just how angry was Louis Tomlinson when One Direction called it quits? As he told
the Lincoln Journal Star in January 2020,
"I was f---ing fuming at first...I thought I'd mentally prepared myself for a break,
but it hit me hard...About a week after, I sat there thinking, 'Strike while the iron's
hot,' but I wasn't ready. I was bitter and angry, I didn't know why we couldn't just
carry on. "
In the same interview, he reveals that he would've been fine with a hiatus, but not
a permanent breakup. And he may have inadvertently admitted that he considered One Direction
to be more of a business venture than an artistic enterprise. He told the newspaper,
"I'm sure there's a better analogy out there but it's a bit like shutting down Coca-Cola.
You don't say, 'Right, let's hang the boots up on that,' because it's a massive thing."
And it sounds like some bad blood might stand in the way of One Direction getting back together,
at least for now. In a 2019 interview with The Zach Sang Show, Tomlinson said he wasn't
quite ready to reconnect with Zayn Malik.
"I don't think me or him are mature enough yet to have that conversation. No! Naw, I'm
not ready to have that chat yet."
In October 2019, Niall Horan told The Telegraph that there was never any major in-fighting
within the ranks, claiming that
"I can never really remember any major bust-ups, just brotherly family nagging, s---ty arguments
like that. But we were gonna end up killing each other. We all sat down one day, had a
chat and it was like, 'We need to take a break. Step back, chill out and try something new.'"
But it sounds like Horan wishes there'd been a clear timeline regarding exactly how much
of a break they were going to take. As he puts it,
"I would have preferred if someone said [the break would last] five years, and it probably
will end up something like that."
Way to get our hopes up!
The members of One Direction worked hard…and some of them played hard, too. Harry Styles
has openly discussed his feelings about controlled substances.
"If you're taking anything to, like, have fun and be creative, then great."
Meanwhile, insiders claimed that Liam Payne's drinking had gotten a bit out of handl, which
he confirmed in an interview with Attitude magazine in 2015, explaining that,
"I started drinking a lot and I began to get a bit tubbier. In fact, because of that I
was getting fat jibes all the time, which hurt me...I'm not afraid to say I went through
a pretty bad stage. And for that time in my life, that was perfect for me. That's what
I wanted to do and so I enjoyed myself."
He went on to say that
"There were just a few times that I went over the limit with things and then I had to pull
it back. I was very fortunate that I had lots of great people around me who said to me,
'Look Liam, you need to chill out a bit now.'"
Tensions within the band reportedly escalated in 2015 after footage leaked of Louis Tomlinson
and Zayn Malik smoking what looked like a joint…which had some unexpected consequences
down the line. In 2015, The Guardian reported,
"The Philippines Bureau of Immigration...requested [that Malik and Tomlinson] post bonds worth
roughly $5,000...ahead of a gig in Manila...They will forfeit the bond if they are caught using
or promoting the use of illegal drugs during their visit."
The Sun reported that
"[The] drug use...caused division within the band...Harry would no longer go out with his
bandmates to social events, unless hanging out with Irishman Niall, [One Direction's]
unofficial peacekeeper."
In late 2018, Zayn Malik told Vogue that he'd had a hard time adjusting to the band's success.
He explained that,
"We went from theatres, to arenas, to stadiums, there was never any sort of bridge between.
Just boom, boom, boom. I guess that kind of progression to any mind, but especially when
you're 17, 18, it kind of affects you a little bit."
He's since opened up about his struggles with anxiety, which have also affected his solo
efforts, leading him to cancel a number of live performances.
"I'm not like a very outgoing, like, social person, like in terms of big groups of people."
Meanwhile, Liam Payne told Men's Health Australia in June 2019 that he almost never felt in
control when he was in One Direction, claiming that,
"It's difficult when you have the level of fame that we had in the band. There have been
a lot of people in trouble with mental health that aren't really getting the help that they
need and I think that's a bit of a problem in our industry."
He went on to say,
"You know what the traps are and if you are lucky enough, like me, to be able to get out
of that scenario and back into a sense of normality, then you know it's a bit different."
During the height of their popularity, the members of One Direction had a seriously grueling
touring schedule. In November 2015, Harry Styles told Entertainment Tonight that he
was looking forward to traveling during the band's break, explaining that
"We've been, of course, incredibly fortunate to travel a lot of the world, and I think
one of the cool things about that is we haven't necessarily spent a lot of time in each place.
You see places you want to go back to, and think, 'I want to come back here for two weeks
instead of two days and experience some more of it.'"
Meanwhile, Niall Horan assured Entertainment Weekly,
"We're not breaking up. We're literally taking time out to see our friends and see our family
and reflect on what we've done over the last few years."
Elsewhere in that interview, Louis Tomlinson admitted,
"[I'm looking forward to feeling] no pressure [and to] just enjoy life, like not having
plans and not having responsibility."
By January 2016, a source told Us Weekly that the band's break would be permanent, claiming
that,
"The 1D thing just ran its course. They’ll remain friends, but they are exhausted and
want solo careers.”
Styles confirmed as much to Rolling Stone in 2017, saying that,
"I didn't want to exhaust our fan base. If you're shortsighted, you can think, 'Let's
just keep touring,' but we all thought too much of the group than to let that happen.
You realize you're exhausted and you don't want to drain people's belief in you."
Meanwhile, it seems like Styles genuinely believed in what One Direction was doing.
"Did you like the music you were playing?"
"Yeah, I did."
"The whole time?"
"I did."
"All the way to the end?"
"All the way to the end."
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