Former One Direction member Zayn Malik has sat down for his first interview in six years.
The singer joined legendary podcast host Alex Cooper on Call Her Daddy, a show that’s been a constant source of bombshell celebrity reveals since its inception.
From his time in the boyband to his infamous run-in with ex-mother-in-law Yolanda Hadid, Malik opened up about a lot. To save you from watching the whole thing, here are the main takeaways we learned.
Watch the video above.
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Zayn Malik on his daughter with Gigi Hadid
Malik shares two-year-old Khai with ex-girlfriend Gigi Hadid – the pair dated on and off for six years between 2015 and 2021.
“I feel like we get to a certain point in adult life where everything is kind of vague and grey and boring, and [Khai’s] brought that colour back,” he gushed on the podcast.
The singer says that fatherhood has totally flipped his priorities. Malik and Hadid share custody, so he has Khai 50 per cent of the time.
“Since I’ve had my daughter, the main thing in my mind is trying to be a good example for her,” he told Cooper.
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“That’s why I’m even doing this interview,” he continued. “I used to get a lot of anxiety around having a conversation like this, and I want her to look at me and be like, ‘Yo, my dad’s doing this!'”
Malik and Hadid split in late 2021, after Malik pleaded no contest to four counts of harassment against his girlfriend and her mother, Yolanda Hadid.
Zayn Malik and Yolanda Hadid: What happened?
In September 2021, reports emerged that Malik had allegedly been involved in a violent altercation with Gigi Hadid, and her mother, Yolanda, at their home in Philadelphia.
A friend of the Pillowtalk singer told People at the time the fight began when “she came over uninvited while Gigi was away for work and he was taking care of Khai… That led to an argument.”
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He was accused of grabbing Yolanda Hadid and shoving her against a dresser, according to court documents. Malik engaged in “continuous cursing” at Yolanda Hadid, the documents said, calling her an “f— Dutch slut” and telling her to stay away from his daughter.
The singer denied the allegations initially, then submitted a plea in court to four counts of harassment, meaning that Malik refused to admit guilt but accepted the punishment.
On Call Her Daddy, Malik says that he really tried to keep the situation as private as possible. While he didn’t speak about the incident directly, he said: “I believe I dealt with it in the best way. In an amicable, respectful way, and that’s all that needs to be said.”
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“I knew what the situation was, I knew what happened, and the people involved knew what happened too and that’s all I really cared about,” he said.
“If anybody of a sane mind would look at the situation, I believe you could respect that I just didn’t want to bring attention to anything, y’know? I wasn’t trying to get into a negative back and forth with her.”
Malik added that he was worried that one day his daughter would be able to read about it in the news. “Any sort of narrative online where my daughter was going to look back and read that and be able to read into it and it would just be something that was… There was no point,” he said.
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The One Direction boys all got sick of each other
Malik reveals that when One Direction was still together and at their peak, things weren’t always smooth sailing. After five years together, they’d started to grow sick of spending all their time together.
The band, consisting of Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne, came together on the British version of The X Factor.
“There was obviously underlying issues within our friendships,” he explained. “We’d been together every day for five years and we got sick of each other, if I’m being completely honest. We were close. We’d done crazy things with each other that nobody else in the world will ever understand… I look back on it now in a much fonder light than I would’ve as I’d just left.”
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“I had great times with them, but yeah, we’d just run our course,” he added.
“I feel like we did a good job in terms of the keeping it together and making the music that we were meant to make. I think I got out at the right time. I think if I had done it any longer it might’ve affected me a bit more. But I think we did the right amount.”
Zayn Malik wanted to be the first to leave the band
When Malik announced his departure from One Direction in 2015, it was a total shock for their fans. But it turns out, he’d wanted to be the first one to leave, on his own terms.
He told Cooper: “I completely selfishly wanted to be the first person to make their own record… I was like, ‘I’m going to jump the gun here for the first time’. I’m passive but when it comes to my music and my business, I’m serious about it and I’m competitive. I wanted to be the first to go and do my own thing.”
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“I don’t want to go into too much detail, but there was a lot of politics going on,” he continued.
“Certain people were doing certain things, certain people didn’t want to sign contracts, so I knew something was happening,” he said. “So I just got ahead of the curve, if I’m being honest with you.”
He does sympathise with One Direction fans, though, saying he understands why his exit was taken so hard.
“It’s an idea, like when you watch Friends,” he said. “You don’t want Joey cussing off Chandler, you want these people to be best friends.”
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Zayn Malik used his solo music as a chance to be creative
Malik noted that jumping into a solo career was stressful, especially after being reliant on four other band members for so long.
“It’s a very different experience standing by yourself on stage,” he said, and “a whole different workload” when performing entire songs by himself rather than splitting up verses between band members.
But he used the opportunity as a chance to explore more mature topics in his music. “Creatively, I just wanted to talk about things that were a bit more real,” he reflected.
“Like authentic to situations that I was going through in my life. Like obviously certain things that we would talk about in the band were always clean cut, just glazing over the top. [There wasn’t] really any depth or any stories to what’s going on.
“I just wanted to show people that I had a bit more depth.”
Fans once hid in bins to surprise him
When discussing crazy fan encounters, Malik recalled one time when the band was in Sweden recording What Makes You Beautiful. He says: “A row of maybe five or six bins, like trash cans, outside of the studio and I came out and like every single one of the trash cans opens and there’s like three people inside of each trash [can] and they tried to grab me.”
“I think I had a mini heart attack.”
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Zayn Malik felt ‘overexposed’ in One Direction
Being a part of the world’s biggest boy band isn’t as fun as it may seem, if the garbage bin story didn’t convince you enough.
“I feel like we were so overexposed in the band that like, it takes a bit of time for you naturally to progress as a human and give something else that is interesting that you have to say,” he said.
He moved to the suburbs of Pennsylvania to escape fame
After feeling “overexposed” by his fame for so long, Malik went in the complete opposite direction, choosing to settle down in a suburban area of Pennsylvania in the United States.
“I just wanted to take a break from the busy city because I was living in New York for three years at the time,” he explained.
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“It just got a bit overwhelming, going out your door to just craziness all the time,” he continued.
“So I just wanted a bit more of a surrounding that I’m used to, like where I grew up in Bradford in the UK… I feel like I just fit in around here than I do at the trendy spots.”
His move was also inspired by a desire to keep his daughter out of the public eye. In New York City, they were constantly hassled by paparazzi and fans.
“I didn’t want [Khai] to have to be exposed to that because she didn’t choose it,” he shared. “It was a choice that I made so I was like, ‘We need to get out of here so that she can have some chance of a normal childhood’.”
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Zayn Malik’s new album is coming soon
Malik says that he’s working on his fourth album, with the lead single Love Like This released next week. He says the direction he’s taking with this project may surprise some fans.
“I’m doing a record I don’t think people are really gonna expect, it’s a different sound for me,” he teased.
“And it’s got some more narrative going on, like real life experiences and stuff. My daughter is mentioned in there a couple of times.”
His singing journey started with a crush on triplets
The whole reason Malik first got into singing was after he developed a crush on three girls in the school choir, who happened to be triplets.
“I just was like ‘I’m gonna be in choir just so I can hang around these girls’ and then it developed from there,” he said.
As a teen, he attended a performing arts high school, where he starred in the musical Grease.
“My music teacher recommended I get singing lessons and… then she said, ‘I think you should go on The X Factor. I think you’ve got a good chance.'”
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