{"id":202282,"date":"2025-10-10T09:03:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T09:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/202282\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T09:03:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T09:03:13","slug":"no-one-campaigned-more-for-one-than-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/202282\/","title":{"rendered":"No One \u2018Campaigned More\u2019 for One Than Him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louis Tomlinson<\/a>, a former member of One Direction, has revealed some of the first intimate details behind the band\u2019s decision to go on an \u201cextended hiatus\u201d in 2015.<\/p>\n

Tomlinson was the focus of a wide-ranging podcast interview, \u201cThe Diary Of A CEO\u201d<\/a> with Steven Bartlett, which screened in select theaters across the United States and the United Kingdom on Wednesday night. In the nearly two-hour long conversation, Tomlinson reflected on his time in the group, and the death<\/a> of bandmate Liam Payne in 2024.<\/p>\n

More from Variety<\/p>\n

Nearly a decade later, Tomlinson detailed the conversation that led to One Direction\u2019s split. He denied any third parties being present for the meeting, but said \u201cit almost might as well have been [our] representatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s really fascinating is those real serious moments\u2026 we wouldn\u2019t have a lot of them in One Direction,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there\u2019s kind of moments where you have to be selfish. It was an atmosphere that you never really felt in the band, because normally\u2026 it\u2019s all this camaraderie. Then all of a sudden, you get someone thinking more independently and more for themselves, which, by the way, they have every right to do. But the room felt cold that day\u2026 I\u2019ve never quite felt an energy like that in the room. There was this emptiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomlinson described himself as being \u201cnaive\u201d at the time, noting he was \u201cadamant on having some kind of indiction\u201d as to how long the hiatus would be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really got an answer that question \u2014 which I understand now, because truthfully, I don\u2019t think the people or person involved was brave enough to answer that question,\u201d he said. \u201cDeep down, I think they probably knew the reality, and that\u2019s why it was tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also mentioned being \u201ccrushed\u201d and \u201cfuming\u201d when former bandmate Zayn Malik left the group and didn\u2019t tell him first, seeing that they were good friends at the time. He admitted its possible Malik didn\u2019t tell him he was leaving because he believed Tomlinson would try to stop him.<\/p>\n

Discussing the possibility of the band\u2019s reunion, Tomlinson said \u201cnever say never,\u201d but landed in uncertainty due to Payne\u2019s death: \u201cI can\u2019t ever imagine\u2026 I\u2019m not sure it would be right to [Payne].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the sake of argument, say in 25 years, and it\u2019s like a fucking Oasis thing\u2026 they offer us an arm and a leg and they\u2019re like \u2018Come back and do this number of shows.\u2019 I don\u2019t know. And the irony is, there\u2019s no one who would have campaigned more for One Direction to come back than Liam. I\u2019d say I came in close second.\u201d<\/p>\n

Payne was 31 years-old when he died in Buenos Aires, Argentina in October 2024. After his death, which Tomlinson mentions he learned through former bandmate Niall Horan, Tomlinson penned a long tribute to his late former bandmate that praised him as \u201cmy boy, one of my best friends, my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cI could just go on and talk all day about how amazing he was, but I think we all looked up to him. I don\u2019t think we would have been brave enough to say at that age when I was in the band, I think I would\u2019ve had too much pride, but we all looked up to him massively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomlinson will appear alongside Malik in a new Netflix<\/a> travel series that promises\u00a0\u201creconnection, exploration and a lot of laughter.\u201d Across three episodes, Malik and Tomlinson engage in intimate conversations about life, love, loss and fatherhood.<\/p>\n

Watch the complete episode of \u201cThe Diary of a CEO\u201d below.<\/p>\n

Best of Variety<\/p>\n

Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Louis Tomlinson, a former member of One Direction, has revealed some of the first intimate details behind the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,15374,99462,341,61828,99463],"class_list":{"0":"post-202282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-liam-payne","12":"tag-louis-tomlinson","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-one-direction","15":"tag-zayn-malik"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}