Having worldwide fame in the ever-pervasive era of social media does not sound like an easy life. Your every word is scrutinised, every slip-up dissected and replayed, and every move subject to a running commentary. And if you’re not entirely convinced with what you’re doing creatively, or feel trapped by other people’s perceptions of you, it’s hardly going to be easy to continue. 

Zayn Malik, the former boybander and soon-to-be-solo artist, has opened up about his feelings of unhappiness as a member of the most famous band in the world (that’s One Direction, by the way). In an interview with The Fader, he explained that the music he was making was “generic as fuck” and he wasn’t convinced with what they were selling.

“There was just a general conception that the management already had of what they want for the band, and I just wasn’t convinced with what we were selling,” Zayn explained. “I wasn’t 100 per cent behind the music. It wasn’t me. It was music that was already given to us, and we were told this is what is going to sell to these people. As much as we were the biggest, most famous boyband in the world, it felt weird. We were told to be happy about something that we weren’t happy about.”

“That’s not music that I would listen to. Would you listen to One Direction, sat at a party with your girl? I wouldn’t. To me, that’s not an insult, that’s me as a 22-year-old man… That’s just not who I am. If I was sat at a dinner date with a girl, I would play some cool shit, you know what I mean? I want to make music that I think is cool shit. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.”

He added: “To me, it’s like I stood in front of a canvas for about five years, and someone said like, ‘You’re not allowed to paint on this canvas.’ I’ve got the paint, I’ve got the fucking brushes, and I can’t get it on there. Now someone removed the plastic and was like, ‘Alright, you can now paint.’”

“I guess I just wanted to go home from the beginning,” he says. “I was always thinking it. I just didn’t know when I was going to do it. Then by the time I decided to go, it just felt right on that day. I woke up on that morning, if I’m being completely honest with you, and was like, ‘I need to go home. I just need to be me now, because I’ve had enough.’”

Malik is now working on a solo album with Frank Ocean’s producer James ‘Malay’ Ho, who recently declared that the singer was “pure genius”.