Being a world star is not easy, says Zayn Malik (Bradford, 30 years old). At the age of 17, the Brit became a mass idol as a member of the band One Direction. Five unknown boys who fate – and the X Factor talent show – brought together to make them famous, already with a formed career. Six years later, the dream was to come to an end: the first to leave the group was Malik in 2015. Now, six years after his last interview, he tells for the first time how he lived all the years he has has ceased to be a person who is meant to be a musical product.
Despite having a loyal following, the artist has faded from both public life and his musical career in recent years. So much so that Malik didn’t speak publicly until he had to promote his next song, Love Like This. The interviewer was none other than Alex Cooper on his celebrity-followed podcast, Call Her Daddy. A chat for just over an hour, in which the singer opened up about his relationship with his ex-partner and mother of his daughter, model Gigi Hadid, his time at One Direction and his ex-mother’s controversial assault allegations. Law.
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In late 2021, Hadid and Malik decided to end their relationship, just months after giving birth to their first and only daughter together: Khai. It wasn’t a friendly game, quite the opposite. The model’s mother, Yolanda, reported the singer for allegedly assaulting her. It was Hadid’s entourage who made the encounter public, while he preferred to remain silent and not make any statements. Until everything exploded. The appeal was successful and the justice system sided with Yolanda, sentenced Malik to 90 days probation and entered a gender-based violence program. “I don’t usually concern myself with what’s being said about me on social media. “The most valuable thing is time and trying to explain and justify something to others takes a lot of time, so I decided to keep it for that,” he said in an interview defending his silence on the episode. “I knew what the situation was, what was happening and what people were involved. That’s all that matters to me. I think if someone in their right mind experiences the situation, they can respect that I didn’t want to focus on the problem or argue with her [Yolanda] or talk about something my daughter might read in the future. I did it well and respectfully. That’s all I can say about it.
Despite the split and the trial, Malik has stated that the relationship with Hadid is currently in a good spot: “Because of Khai, we have a very good relationship. She’s the most important thing, so it’s going well.” When the little girl was born, they both agreed that they would raise her in the utmost privacy. Something they have kept until now because almost nothing is known about them and they don’t show them on their social networks. The quarrel with her ex-mother-in-law arose precisely because the proud grandmother showed a photo of the little girl in the networks. “[Khai] He didn’t choose to be a public figure, I did. I’m not trying to shield her, I want to give her the opportunity to stay away from all of this. Whatever she wants to do in life, I will support her.
Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik walk with their daughter Khai on March 25, 2021 in New York. Janet Mayer/Startraksphoto.com (Janet Mayer/Startraksphoto.com / Cordon Press)
Malik and Hadid have joint custody. Something that allows the artist to be with his daughter for half a month: “She grows up so fast that when I’m with her I don’t do anything else. I just spend the day doing things she wants to do like painting, playing with plasticine, going to the park, the zoo… Through her I relived my own childhood. I had reached a point in my adulthood where everything was gray and boring. She brought the color back.”
The Pillow Talk performer also opened up about his time as a One Direction member on the podcast and how he experienced the split. He was the first to leave the British band, which marked the beginning of the end: the idea remained, but the essence had already been lost. Malik hadn’t talked about it since he left eight years ago, making him the only one who didn’t talk about the breakup. “People didn’t want to do certain things, sign contracts… I knew something was wrong. I just kept going,” he defended himself, implying that some of the other band members were already preparing their solo careers behind the other colleagues. “To be honest I walked out of there completely selfishly. I wanted to be the first to make my own record. When it comes to music I am very serious and competitive.
Five strangers who became colleagues and then friends. During those five years they were inseparable, which soured their friendship: “We got tired of each other. We were close and did crazy things that nobody else did. I look back on it now with far more joy than when I left. And that’s not surprising, given that months after he left the band, he was playing along during a tense moment when he got into a fight on Twitter with his ex-partner Louis Tomlinson. During his time at One Direction, many described him as “serious and mysterious,” which he dismissed years later: “It wasn’t my personality, it was a marketing plan.” “You can’t define a whole person with just one trait.” Now he took the time to process everything he had experienced and came back completely recovered: “With a more mature mind, I look at it and think, ‘This happened and this is it.’