Louis Tomlinson wants no part of any One Direction beef. He proved this true by completely shutting down a question from Australian news correspondents on July 20 about the recent feud between former One Direction members Liam Payne and Zayn Malik and then called them out on it. After the hosts of The Project specifically addressed “the bit of 1D beef,” and asked how he feels looking back on his years in the boy band, Liam, 30, quickly replied, “So the fishing’s begun already … I see what you’re doing.”
He then recalled his time with Liam, 28, Zayn, 29, and Niall Horan, 28, with great fondness. “I’m immensely proud, as I know Liam is,” he said. “I’m immensely proud of those days, obviously. I mean, it was an incredible thing to do, especially to do at such a young age. Amazing memories, man, amazing memories.”
The hosts then took the push-back from the “Two of Us” singer as unwillingness to talk about his boyband days at all. “Louis, when you said, ‘All the phishing’s begun,’ and I mentioned it is so annoying having to answer retrospective questions like that, I’m genuinely interested, how much do you wanna talk about that time in your life to the media versus you how much you never wanna have to talk about it again?” the female co-host, Carrie Bickmore, asked. “No good, good question,” Louis answered. “I’m more than happy to talk about it in every interview … It’s just when you mentioned the beef before, it sounded like you were ready to stir some s–t up, that’s all I’m saying.”
The hosts’ question about the feud came just under two months after Liam bashed Zayn during a May appearance on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast. During the podcast, Logan and the co-hosts were recalling a feud Logan’s also famous brother, Jake Paul, had with both Zayn and Gigi Hadid in 2020, during which the supermodel stuck up for her former partner by calling him a “respectful king” after slamming Jake as “irrelevant.” Referring to Zayn and Gigi’s breakup after Zayn pleaded guilty to harassing Gigi’s mother, Yolanda Hadid, Liam quipped, “… that one didn’t age well.”
He went on to air more feelings about his former bandmate, which were both positive and negative. “There’s many reasons why I dislike Zayn and there’s many reasons why I’ll always, always be on his side,” he continued. “If I had had to go through what he went through, through his growth and whatever else. You know are your parents very supportive?”
Louis then further explained the differences between his and Zayn’s upbringing before reassuring the podcast hosts that he supports the father of one. “My parents are overly supportive to the point where it’s annoying at times and they don’t even mind me saying that. And Zayn had a different upbringing in that sense,” he detailed. “You can always look at the man for where he is and say, ‘Oh, yeah, whatever that guy’s a d—k.’ Right? But at the end of the day, once you understand what he’s been through to get to that point, and also whether or not he even wanted to be there.” He concluded, “I’m so misunderstood by myself more than anyone, like I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m here. It’s like, I can’t sit here and d*ck on him because of whatever.”
Unsurprisingly, Liam’s words on Zayn had fans in a fury, and the following day, he took to Twitter to explain his statements. “Guys – I wouldn’t normally comment on this stuff but when it’s your family it’s hard to let it slide. They mentioned a specific incident involving Zayn which I responded to – but listening back maybe I didn’t articulate myself as well as I could have,” he began in a string of tweets. “I was saying that there will always be things we disagree on but that I will always, always be on his side. That’s family. Zayn is my brother and I will stand by him forever.”