Liam Payne calls out Zayn Malik saying “there are many reasons why I dislike him”

Photo credit: Jeff Kravitz/AMA2014 – Getty Images

Here’s every single time Zayn Malik and One Direction have shaded each other over the years (oops) starting with the latest update:

1 June 2022

Liam Payne has called out former bandmate Zayn Malik in a new interview, saying, “There are many reasons why I dislike him.” Ouch.

Speaking in a video with YouTuber Logan Paul, Liam got onto the topic of Zayn, at one point jokingly calling him “Wayne Malik.” He then went on to reference a reported tweet from Gigi Hadid, saying, “Then she tweeted something about ‘get yourself a respectful man’ or something,” before chiming in, “that one didn’t age very well.”

He continued, telling viewers, “Before we go too deeply 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.”

Photo credit: Getty Images

Liam followed up by sharing sympathy for Zayn, saying, “If I had had to go through what he went through through his growth and whatever else… my parents are overly supportive to the point where it’s annoying at times, and Zayn had a different upbringing in that sense.

“You can always look at the man for where he is and say ‘oh yeah, whatever, that guy’s a d***,’ but at the end of the day once you understand what he’s been through to get to the point, and whether or not if he he actually even wanted to be there…” before trailing off.

The singer added, “Listen, I don’t agree with any of his actions. I can’t commend some of the things that he’s done. I can’t be on his side for that. But what I can say is that I understand, and you only hope that at some point in their life, the person on the other end of the phone wants to receive the help you’re willing to give.”

Photo credit: Getty Images

Here’s hoping these two are on OK terms now!

Here’s a timeline of all the other times One Direction have shaded each other, too:

Like any friendship group (because boy bands are totally the same as Mean Girls, right?), One Direction have had their fair share of ups and downs.

Ups include winning six BRIT Awards, selling out stadium tours around the world and pocketing an estimated £50million each. Pretty decent. But they have had a bit of stick here and there along the way, too – not least from each other. Prepare to feel more shade than a parasol.

Story continues

25 March 2015

Zayn Malik leaves the band, claiming: “I know I have four friends for life in Louis, Liam, Harry and Niall” in his full leaving statement.

Let’s see how long that lasts.

May 2015

You might remember Louis Tomlinson and Naughty Boy having the Twitter spat to end all Twitter spats over Zayn Malik working with the producer in the studio very quickly after his 1D departure. Only, er, things got a little messy when Z got involved:

29 July 2015

Zayn signs a solo contract to make music with RCA records, and claims it’s time to make “real music”. Is that the first bit of shade against 1D we see?

He wrote: “I guess I never explained why I left , it was for this moment to be given the opportunity to show you who i really am! #realmusic #RCA !!”

November 2015

In his first ever solo interview, Zayn tells Fader magazine One Direction’s music is “generic as f*ck”, and they were told to be happy about things they didn’t want to be.

“If I would sing a hook or a verse slightly R&B, or slightly myself, it would always be recorded 50 times until there was a straight version that was pop, generic as f*ck, so they could use that version”, he adds. “We were told to be happy about something that we weren’t happy about.”

January 2016

Guess what? Zayn’s chucking more sass into the mix – this time telling Beats 1 he never wanted to be in the band anyway.

“I think I always wanted to go, from like the first year, really,” he said. “I never really wanted to be there, like in the band. I just gave it a go because it was there at the time, and when I realised the direction we were going in – mind the pun – with the music, I instantly realised it wasn’t for me, because I realised I couldn’t put any input in.”

Photo credit: Getty Images

January 2016

Zayn then tells Capital FM’s Dave Berry that he wasn’t sure he’d get an invitation to meet Louis Tomlinson’s newborn son Freddie because the pair weren’t on talking terms right now.

“We’ll see if I get an invite. Obviously I wish him the best of luck. His kid is cute as f**k so obviously I favourited it. We’re not talking on friend terms obviously, so that’s as far as I can go, by favouriting his picture.”

March 2016

Zayn covers NME magazine, and tells them he’s no longer in touch with the others because “nobody’s reached out”.

“I’m still probably the closest to Liam,” Zayn said. “We talk on the phone… We haven’t met up in a long time so we want to meet up.” As for Harry, Louis, and Niall? “I tried to have contact, but nobody’s reached out. So… whatever.”

March 2016

Zayn throws a bit more parasol shade with Complex magazine, commenting: “I was frustrated with the band. It was about denying the authenticity of who I was, and what I enjoyed about music, and why I got into it.

“That was something that was always underlying, and ended up as the main factor of me leaving in the end.”

Photo credit: Getty Images

March 2016

One Direction go on “extended hiatus”.

November 2016

Zayn wins his first solo AMA, and asks in his acceptance speech: “This one has just my name on it, right?”

It didn’t go down well with 1D fans, considering Niall Horan was sat in the audience and it was a bit of unnecessary gloating, really.

February 2017

In a very bizarre turn of events, The Chase’s Bradley Walsh album of covers beat Malik’s debut as the best-selling album of 2016 – and he revealed Niall was texting him “laughing his head off” about it.

Bradley commented: “I just laughed when I found out. I thought it was hysterical. I am probably the oldest new artist Sony has ever signed. Niall Horan was sending me messages, laughing his head off. And I got big congratulations from Simon Cowell. He thoroughly enjoyed it.”

May 2017

Liam Payne admitted Harry Styles’ debut solo single ‘Sign Of The Times’ wasn’t his kind of music, telling Music Choice: “Harry’s song I heard, and I’ll be honest with you, it’s not my sort of music. It’s not something I’d listen to, but I think he did a great job of doing what he wanted to do. That’s the way I’d put it best, I think.”

May 2017

Speaking about why he didn’t sign his solo career with Simon Cowell, Liam put it down to wanting to separate himself fully from One Direction.

“I really wanted to get away from everything that I did”, he told The Sun. “If you want to be fresh, you’ve got to start fresh.”

June 2017

Photo credit: Getty Images

Liam Payne took a fairly bizarre swipe at Zayn Malik during the Glamour Awards. He was on stage presenting James Corden with the ‘Man of the Year’ gong, and joked to the crow: “1D never had a slogan, but if we had, Zayn might have stayed.”

Wait, what?

September 2017

Zayn Malik puts the final nail in any Zarry fans’ dreams, telling Us Weekly he and Harry Styles barely spoke while they were in One Direction, let alone since.

“To be honest, I never really spoke to Harry even when I was in the band”, he responded when asked if they were still in touch. “So I didn’t really expect that much of a relationship with him.”

Photo credit: Getty Images

October 2017

Niall Horan tells The Sun he doesn’t have Zayn Malik’s mobile phone number anymore, and that his ex-One Direction bandmate is very hard to stay in touch with.

He explained that he “hadn’t spoken to Zayn in a while” and the last time they were in touch was “a couple of months ago”, adding, “Zayn’s Zayn – not a lot of people would be able to say that they get in touch with him. He’s the hardest man to get in touch with. He is always changing his number.”

November 2017

Billboard ask Zayn Malik for the millionth time whether he still talks to any of the members of One Direction.

“Our relationships have definitely changed since we were in a band together, but I think that’s just life,” he explained to the publication. “Everybody grows up; two of the guys have got kids now. But no, I don’t talk to any of them, really.”

March 2018

Liam Payne tweeted Niall, Louis and Harry when he saw the hashtag #OneDirectionBestFans trending worldwide, writing, “@NiallOfficial @Louis_Tomlinson @Harry_Styles can you believe this after so long?!!!

Thank you so much you guys are unbelievable”

Some fans were pissed, though, because he didn’t mention Zayn Malik – despite the fact Zayn technically left One Direction of his own accord.

May 2018

Liam says being in One Direction “nearly killed him” on KISS FM for their ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ Mental Health Awareness Campaign.

“When the band started our break I struggled with the idea of becoming famous again, it scared the living daylights out of me”, he opened up. “Because the last time it nearly killed me, frankly.

“So I had to figure out a way to make it work for me – rather than me work for it. I love my life, it’s been fantastic but there have been a lot of struggles to get to this point. It’s about having good people around you. They don’t have to be a psychologist – just people who are friendly, someone to talk to.

June 2018

Zayn Malik gives GQ cites his trust issues as the real reason why he isn’t friends with any of One Direction, commenting, “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.”

6 November 2018

Zayn Malik might’ve left the band over three years ago (sob), but he’s still being asked about his time in One Direction and whether he’s in touch with Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne.

“I ain’t spoke to any of them for a long time, to be honest with you”, the singer said in the December issue of British Vogue. “That’s just the way it is. There’s things that happen and things that were said after I left. Snide things. Small things that I would never have expected.”

Zayn also said he didn’t make a ‘single friend’ in the five years he was in 1D, but that “I have always been a bit like that, though – always a bit of an island. I don’t like to confer with too many people.”

Oh why they hadn’t spoken since leaving the band, he added, “People take it different ways – especially when there are five different personalities. The relationships had broken apart.”

7 December 2018

Fans think Louis Tomlinson just came for Zayn Malik on Twitter, calling him a “hypocrite”. Zayn, who left the band in March 2015, dropped his new single ‘Good Years’ on Thursday [6 December], which is rumoured to be about his time in One Direction.

Lyrics include, “I’d rather be anywhere, anywhere but here / Too much drugs and alcohol. What the hell were we fighting for? / ‘Cause now the whole damn world will know. That we’re too numb and just too dumb to change the story.”

Louis then tweeted, “Proper confused. What a hypocrite!”, and fans are shook that he might be sub-tweeting about Zayn.

One wrote, “Please Louis, tell us this isn’t about who we all think its about or is it just a complete coincidence that Zayn brought his new song out and you just happened to tweet this around the same time?”

Another added, “Yo Louis WHAT THE HELL are you talking about?? This better not be about Zayn’s new song. I swear you guys are going to break us if you get into a fight. We don’t want you to hurt each other.”

Uh oh.

11 March 2019

Louis opened up about why their friendship fell apart during an appearance on The Dan Wootton Interview podcast. The singer puts it down to Zayn failing to show up to his emotional The X Factor performance in December 2016, just days after mother Johannah Deakin passed away.

” Truthfully it never really got better,” Louis said. “I had a couple of calls with him after I lost my mum and all the boys had agreed to come to that performance and he didn’t show, so that really bugged me.

“It was just seeing everyone there – Harry, Niall and Liam – that was what I needed that night, that support. So on the other end of the spectrum it kind of really showed. So, eh, I hope he’s alright, but…”

5 June 2019

Liam gets real about how ‘toxic’ being in One Direction could feel, before opening up about turning to alcohol as a coping mechanism.

“When you’re doing hundreds and hundreds of [concerts] and it’s the same 22 songs at the same time every single day, even if you’re not happy, you’ve got to go out there,” he said in the Men’s Health Australia interview.

“It’s almost like putting the Disney costume on before you step up on stage, and underneath the Disney costume, I was pissed quite a lot of the time because there was no other way to get your head around what was going on. I mean, it was fun. We had an absolute blast, but there were certain parts of it where it just got a little bit toxic.”

It’s something Liam still has to face today. “I still struggle with it now,” he said. “I really struggle to say no because I don’t like to let people down. It’s in my nature. 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 they need, and I think that’s a bit of a problem in our industry. It’s the same shit that happens to everyone, that’s been happening since the ’70s. 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.”

25 July 2019

Louis shuts down rumours about why One Direction split, taking to Twitter to deny a salacious headline.

The singer screenshotted the story which read, “Drugs, meltdowns and ‘gay sex’ rumours – how ‘rivalry and hatred’ tore One Direction apart”. He wrote, “Biggest load of bullshit I’ve seen in a while. Typical unprovoked venom. Couldn’t be further from the truth!”

Well that’s the end of that, then.

19 September 2019

Liam says that he and Louis “absolutely hated each other” at the beginning of their One Direction journey.

He told Hits Radio: “When we were in the band it kind of felt like, because he was the oldest and because I’d been singing for quite a bit of time we both got put in a weird position.

“He was wanting to be the leader and I was doing my thing and wanted to. So at first we didn’t get on at all. We absolutely hated each other, it was so funny. Really bad. We hid it well.”

4 November 2019

Liam Payne has revealed Zayn Malik didn’t even say goodbye when he left the band back in 2015.

“I think with Zayn’s particular exit and the way he chose to go, we haven’t really heard from him since he left,” the singer told GQ magazine.

“He 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.” Brutal!

11 March 2020

Niall Horan reveals Zayn Malik doesn’t keep in touch with the other members of the band at all, and essentially cut himself off once he left the band. “He’s quite a hard fella to keep in touch with,” Niall, 26, told The Sun of Zayn, 27.

“He’d probably tell you that himself, to be fair. I don’t particularly talk to him a lot. I mean, if he’s got something coming out or something I will text him. He might not reply but I’ll give him a shout, but I don’t know… After the band, he left for his reasons and then he never really spoke to us much afterwards.

“I’ve got no bad blood with him at all but some things have a lifespan. I don’t know. We will see what happens. Maybe one day we can reconvene at some point, but not right now.”

7 September 2021

It might have been over six years since Zayn Malik left One Direction, but that doesn’t mean the lads have stopped shading each other over it. This time, all eyes are on Liam Payne, who made a savage TikTok not-so-subtly calling out Zayn over his decision to quit.

The tongue-in-cheek selfie video shows Liam miming to a TikTok audio of the words “are we absolutely sure what direction we’re going?”, with Liam adding the text “POV the meeting after Zayn quit.” Ouch.

Putting on his best panicked/confused face, Liam does a pretty good job of miming to the audio, which originates from a Twitter clip shared from a maths lecture.

He also added the text, “😂😂😂 forgot I had this in drafts,” so it’s clear Liam’s able to laugh about the band’s rift, at least.

Liam urged fans to not take the clip seriously too, writing the caption, “😂😂😂 forgot I made this a while ago hope you see the funny side” – and if the video’s 23.5 million views are anything to go by, we reckon they do.

Take a look for yourself:

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