A year after Hailee Steinfeld, 23, called it quits with Niall Horan, 26, the Dickinson actress seemingly resurrected her music career out of the ashes of her failed relationship with the One Direction member. Days after announcing that her new song, “Wrong Direction,” would be released on New Year’s Day, fans eagerly awaited Hailee to spill the tea on what went “wrong” between her and Niall. What they got was a thoughtful ballad about the former couple’s breakup and how Hailee is reckoning with how she was treated during the time they dated.
In the song, Hailee begins with a straight forward lyric that sets the tone for the tune. “I don’t hate you,” she somberly sings. “No, I couldn’t if I wanted to.” But, Hailee didn’t shy away from telling the subject of her song, “I just hate all the hurt that you put me through.” Throughout the entire piano ballad, the “Love Myself” singer confesses how she “was crazy to give you my mind, my body” throughout the turbulent relationship. Clearly, the song isn’t exactly a burn to her former flame, but more so an accounting for a courtship that simply wasn’t built to last and Hailee’s own perspective on their time together.
Hailee didn’t mention Niall by name when she announced the new single on Dec. 29, but that title wasn’t terribly subtle. Adding fuel to the fire, Hailee shared a series of photos from 2019 on her Instagram stories along with the message, “Thankful for all the lessons, the love, the heartbreak, & the memories.” Fans immediately expected this to be a reaction to Niall saying that his upcoming album (due in February or March 2020) is all about breakups. “There’s all these different sides to a breakup,” he told Jimmy Fallon on the Dec. 12 episode of The Tonight Show. “It’s not all sad, all the time. When you break up with someone, it’s not just like, I’m sitting at a window. I’m looking out. I’m feeling sorry for myself. It’s raining against that window.”
“Sometimes you’re like out on the town, throwing some shapes and you write songs like ‘Nice To Meet Ya!’ And then the sad ones come,” he added. “On this album, I just kind of wanted to write a nice mix of the ups and downs of that.”
Hailee and Niall split in December 2018 after a year of low-key dating. At first, reports claimed that their schedules were just too busy for romance. She was about to go on a major press tour for Bumblebee, and he was busy with his solo music career. It actually seemed to be one of the most amicable splits ever. Hailee even went so far to deny claims that she threw shade at her ex in January 2019. After she shared Julia Michaels’ Instagram Story about dating narcissists to her own account, some suspected she was subtweeting Nial. “No hidden messages, my loves,” she tweeted. “Just reposted an interesting read that I’m sure some of y’all can relate to. Nothing but love!”
“Wrong Direction” follow’s “Afterlife,” the single she released in September for her new Apple TV+ series, Dickinson. Though she has released a handful of songs and made appearances on other people’s tracks, fans have been patiently waiting for a follow-up to her 2016 debut, Haiz.