Louis Tomlinson accused three TV hosts of trying to “stir up” tensions between his former One Direction bandmates during an interview.
The former 1D star featured on Australian series The Project on Wednesday (20 July) to promote his tour, and was asked to address recent comments made by Liam Payne about Zayn Malik.
Last month, Payne spoke about Malik while being interviewed by YouTuber star Logan Paul.
Paul described an alleged “experience” in which his brother Jake had tweeted Malik after believing the singer had been “disrespectful” towards him. After this, Zayn’s ex-girlfriend, model Gigi Hadid, sent a tweet to Jake “calling him “ugly and irrelevant”.
Payne interjected: “Then she tweeted something about ‘get yourself a respectful man’ or something – that one didn’t age very well,” later stating: “Before we go too deep into this, there’s many many reasons why I dislike Zayn and there’s many reasons why I’ll always always be on his side.”
It is believed that Payne was initially referring to the allegation that Malik had “struck” Hadid’s mother, Yolanda, during an altercation last year.
Malik, who has a daughter with Hadid, vehemently denied the claim, writing in a statement: “I adamantly deny striking Yolanda Hadid and for the sake of my daughter I decline to give any further details and I hope that Yolanda will reconsider her false allegations and move towards healing these family issues in private.”
In reponse to being asked about the “1D beef”, Tomlinson replied, smiling: “So the fishing’s begun already. Yeah, I see what you’re doing.”
He added: “I’m immensely proud, as I know Liam is, I’m immensely proud of those days, obviously. It was an incredible thing to do, especially to do at such a young age. Amazing memories, man, amazing memories.”
When one of the hosts asked if Tomlinson finds it frustrating being about asked about his time in the band, he said: “Good question. I’m more than happy to talk about it in every interview. As I said, it’s something I’m immensely proud of. It’s just when you mentioned the beef before, it sounded like you were ready to stir some s*** up, that’s all I’m saying.”
Tomlinson was then asked about the recent news revealing a university course about Harry Styles was being taught at Texas State University.
“I don’t really have any interest in having a course made about me, to be fair, but each to their own,” he replied. When pushed on his view on the subject, he added: “You sound very interested, to be fair. Maybe you should sign up.”
