What Really Went Down With One Direction's Breakup?

Millions of hearts around the world shattered when One Direction confirmed their hiatus in August 2015. A source told E! News at the time, "They are taking a hiatus so they can work on individual projects for a while but they are not splitting up. They will remain together and plan to work together in the future." The source added that the members of One Direction — Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson (sans former member Zayn Malik) — remained close friends and were incredibly supportive of one another and their respective solo projects. Just two months earlier, insiders close to the British boy band denied breakup rumors to People, explaining that the members were similar to the Rolling Stones in that they wanted to pursue solo efforts while also remaining a unit together.

At the time, the band was promoting its fifth (what would become its final) album, Made In The A.M., and there was a lot of confusion over what the group's status actually was: Were they on a break? Were they broken up? Was there animosity? Even Simon Cowell, who effectively created 1D on The X Factor, confessed to Billboard that he wasn't entirely sure what the guys' plans were. In any case, the 1D's 2015 release as a foursome was their most recent effort, as of this writing. 

Here's what led to the One Direction breakup, be it a permanent split or a temporary division.

Part of what made One Direction so charming was the group's camaraderie, but they may not have been as close as the outside world believed, especially when it came to Zayn Malik's relationships with his bandmates. To wit: Liam Payne confessed to GQ Style in late 2019 that Malik "didn't even say goodbye" to his bandmates before he quit. Malik claimed to Billboard in 2016 that he wanted to remain friends with his bandmates despite quitting, but they never bothered to keep in touch with him post-exit. He contradicted two years later, telling GQ, "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." 

Payne hinted that Malik wasn't the only 1D member with some sort of beef throughout the group's tenure, though he didn't go into specifics. "We had our differences throughout the whole experience with some things," he told GQ Style. "I still think about some stuff that was said and done that now I would do differently, but then that's all part of growing up," adding that One Direction had a "schoolyard mentality somehow."

Harry Styles was so close with Louis Tomlinson in the early days of One Direction that some truly deranged Directioners theorized that the duo must surely be in a romantic relationship. The hypothetical coupling was dubbed "Larry Stylinson," and fan fiction and bizarre conspiracies within the 1D fandom ran rampant about the former friends — the buzz even inspired an explicit animated scene in HBO's Euphoria, which Tomlinson said he didn't approve. Tomlinson has vehemently and repeatedly denied the rumors, and Zayn Malik said that the "Larry" talk forced a wedge between Styles' and Tomlinson's real-life friendship.

"It's not funny, and it still continues to be quite hard for them," Malik told Fader in his first post-1D interview. "They won't naturally go put their arm around each other because they're conscious of this thing that's going on, which is not even true. They won't do that natural behavior." Tomlinson also previously fumed to The Sun that the rumors were "disrespectful" to his then-girlfriend Eleanor Calder.

One Direction had a fast and stratospheric rise to fame following their formation on The X Factor in 2010, and the band and their managers did all that they could to capitalize on their success, knowing that pop stardom could be quite fleeting. As a result, the guys were worked sometimes to a point that may have been unhealthy (seriously, look at their tour schedules). In November 2015, Harry Styles told Entertainment Tonight that he was looking forward to traveling during the band's "break," explaining, "We've been, of course, incredibly fortunate to travel a lot of the world, and I think one of the cool things about that is we haven't necessarily spent a lot of time in each place. You see places you want to go back to, and think, 'I want to come back here for two weeks instead of two days and experience some more of it.'"

Niall Horan shirked off break-up rumors, and stressed that they wanted more time to spend with loved ones, and to "reflect" on "the last few years." Louis Tomlinson quipped that he was happy to have "no pressure [and to] just enjoy life, like not having plans and not having responsibility." By January 2016, a source told Us Weekly that the band's hiatus would be permanent, explaining that they didn't renew their contracts because they were "exhausted" and wanted to focus on their solo efforts, a sentiment Styles later confirmed to Rolling Stone.

Zayn Malik told Vogue in late 2018 that adjusting to the rapid escalation in the band's profile was difficult. "We went from theaters, to arenas, to stadiums — there was never any sort of bridge between. Just boom, boom, boom. I guess that kind of progression, to any mind — but especially when you're 17, 18 — it kind of affects you a little bit," he explained. Malik has since frequently opened up about his struggles with anxiety, which have also affected his solo efforts, causing him to cancel numerous live performances.

Liam Payne, meanwhile, told Men's Health Australia in June 2019 that he almost never felt in control during his time with One Direction, and that their lives and work got "toxic" over time due to the stresses involved. "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 that they need and I think that's a bit of a problem in our industry. It's the same s**t 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."

Louis Tomlinson was exceptionally angry about the One Direction split. "I was f**king fuming at first," he told the Lincoln Journal Star in January 2020 (via Yahoo! News), adding that he didn't believe the band was as overworked as some of his fellow members claimed. "I thought I'd mentally prepared myself for a break, but it hit me hard ... About a week after, I sat there thinking, 'Strike while the iron's hot,' but I wasn't ready," Tomlinson said. Admittedly "bitter and angry" at the time of the headline-making breakup, he added, "I didn't know why we couldn't just carry on. But now, even though I don't fully understand everyone's individual reasons, I respect them." We're relieved to hear that, at least! 

Tomlinson went on to reveal that he would have been willing to go on a temporary hiatus for a year, but not a permanent breakup. However, in doing so, the singer also somewhat confessed (if accidentally) that he may have seen the band as a more of a business than an artistic endeavor. Tomlinson explained, "I'm sure there's a better analogy out there but it's a bit like shutting down Coca-Cola. You don't say, 'Right, let's hang the boots up on that,' because it's a massive thing." Well, we suppose he's not wrong about that.

The odds are so great for a One Direction reunion in 2020 that bookies reportedly put solid money on it happening — sans Zayn Malik. If you ask the members of 1D, it does seem to be heading in that, well, direction.

Louis Tomlinson, who released his debut solo effort, Walls, around that time, revealed on The One Show (via the Mirror), that it would likely "happen at some point, we'd be stupid not to ... I think we're kind of exploring and enjoying ourselves individually." He also told Rolling Stone that he still adored his former bandmates and would never bash their time nor the music they'd made together just to get "cool points."

Niall Horan concurred, telling Billboard that he actually felt like he was still in the band, and later revealing to The Telegraph, "I'm enjoying what I'm doing, but if one of the lads were to pick up the phone and say it's time, I'd do it." Similarly, Harry Styles told Rolling Stone that a reunion could work if everyone wanted in, and Liam Payne hinted to Dubai's The City Times in January 2020 that a documentary may be on the way, along with a potential reunion. "It suddenly struck me today that actually what we're doing right now is going to make this bigger," he said of the group's solo efforts, "because we can do five concerts in one concert at a time."