One Direction star Louis Tomlinson quickly shut down The Project hosts Carrie Bickmore and Peter Helliar, after the latter asked the musician about his beef with former bandmate Liam Payne.
Tomlinson appeared on the popular news show last night, and Helliar asked him directly about the public feud between Payne and the other former One Direction members.
“There’s been a bit of 1D beef recently thanks to Liam who’s been speaking out about the band a little bit. When you look back on your experience about the band, how do you feel about your experience of those days?” Helliar said.
Louis replied, “Oh, so the fishing’s begun already! Yeah, I see what you’re doing. No, listen, I’m immensely proud, as I know Liam is, I’m immensely proud of those days, obviously.”
“It was an incredible thing to do, especially at such a young age and I have amazing memories, amazing memories.”
Bickmore jumped in and continued to probe the 30-year-old, asking: “Louis, when you say, “Aw, the fishing’s begun,” I imagine it is so annoying having to answer retrospective questions like that. Do you want to talk about that time in your life to the media versus how much you never have to want to talk about it again?”
He replied, “I’m more than happy to talk about it in every interview. It’s something I’m immensely proud of, as I’d already said, it’s just when you mentioned the beef before, it sounded like you were getting ready to stir some s**t up, that’s all I’m saying.”
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Helliar jokingly retorted, “No, I’m not a s**t stirrer Louis, do I look like a s**t stirrer?”
The interview Helliar and Tomlinson was referring to was when Payne openly spoke about personal issues related to his former bandmates on The Impaulsive podcast last month hosted by Logan Paul, and Mike Majlak.
During the chat, Payne and the host spoke about Zayn Malik’s feud with Logan’s brother Jake Paul in 2020, one which ended with Malik’s then-girlfriend Gigi Hadid labelling Paul “irrelevant” and calling her partner a “respectful king”. Last year, Malik and Gigi split after the model’s mother alleged that he “struck her” during a family dispute. He was was charged with four criminal offenses of harassment.
“She tweeted something about get yourself a respectful man or something. That one didn’t age very well,” Payne said in the interview. He went on to share that he dislikes his former bandmate.
“There’s many reasons why I dislike Zayn and there’s many reasons why I’ll always, always be on his side.
“If I had had to go through what he went through, through his growth and whatever else. You know are your parents very supportive?”
Shortly after the interview aired, some of the former One Direction members unfollowed Payne.
However, the tense exchange about Payne wasn’t the only awkward part of the The Project interview. Tomlinson appeared uncomfortable when Waleed Aly changed the topic to a new Texas university course that’s dedicated to his other former band member, Harry Styles. Aly referenced the course and asked Tomlinson, “that should be you, shouldn’t it?”
“I don’t really have interest in having a course done about me,” the musician replied.
“It’s a very strange thing not to be interested in,” said Aly.
“You sound very interested – maybe you should sign up,” Tomlinson retorted.
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