Zayn Malik Says He Never Wanted to Be the “Mysterious One” in One Direction

And he finally opened up about why he decided to leave the band back in 2015.

Every Directioner remembers where they were (and how long they cried for) when news first broke that Zayn Malik was leaving One Direction back in 2015. The main question on everyone’s mind? Why, Zayn, why? Well, now, over eight years later, the former boybander is ready to give fans a bit of closure by sharing his side of the story in detail for the first time — and he’s not holding back.

On Wednesday’s episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, Malik opened up about the split when chatting with host Alex Cooper during his first interview in more than six years. When prompted by Cooper to reflect on the moment he knew that it was “time to leave” One Direction, the singer shared that it partially had to do with group “politics” and his “competitive” nature.

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“I think I’d known for a minute, but there was a lot of politics going on,” he began. “Certain people were doing certain things, certain people didn’t want to sign contracts, so I knew something was happening so I just got ahead of the curve. I was just like, ‘I’m just gonna get out of here. I think this is done.’”

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He continued, “I, completely selfishly, wanted to be the first person to go and make my own record. I was like, ‘I’m gonna jump the gun here for the first time.’ I’m a passive dude, 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 do my own thing.”

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Zayn then explained that being around his bandmates, Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, and Niall Horan, 24/7 during their five years of touring also contributed to his departure.

“There were obviously underlying issues within our friendships, too,” Malik revealed. “We’d been together every day for 5 years, and we got sick of each other if I’m being completely honest. We were close, you know, 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 have as I’d just left.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the singer also touched on what he thought of his “bad boy” persona throughout his time in the band, adding, “They just said, ‘Oh yeah, you can be the mysterious one. That wasn’t necessarily my personality, I’m just chill. I know that a lot of people have high-energy personalities, and it’s just not the way I am.”

But while fans may have had to wait several years to hear from Malik in an interview, he later assured fans that they won’t have to wait nearly as long for new music as his next single, “Love Like This,” is set to drop on July 21. “It’s just a summer jam. It’s a good vibe. It just feels like summer,” he shared.