Singer Zayn Malik joined host Alex Cooper in an interview on the podcast, “Call Her Daddy.” The podcast is popular as a source of celebrity gossip and revelations. Malik has always kept a private life so through the interview, he hopes people would get to know him a bit more. So in his first interview in six long years, he was able to open up about a lot of things from his journey into fatherhood, on being part of and leaving One Direction, and even on the issue between him and Yolanda Hadid, his ex-girlfriend, Gigi Hadid’s mother. But among all these, we have got to love to know that he did this interview mainly for his two-year-old daughter with Hadid, Khai.
“I feel like we get to a certain point in adult life where everything is kind of vague ad gray and boring, and she’s brought that color back.”
— Zayn Malik on daughter Khai
Malik shared that ever since he had his daughter, all he wanted to do is to be a good example to her. He got real, explaining that he used to have a lot of anxiety in doing such interviews. But even so, he wanted his daughter to look at him and be proud that he is doing that despite all else. One where Khai can get to say, “‘Yo, my dad’s doing this!”
When asked about a dad quality he has proudly taken on, it is on telling dad jokes. Even though some would look at him weirdly for those jokes, he says that as a dad, he is now allowed to tell those. I mean, who would not want to hear a dad joke from THE Zayn Malik?
In terms of co-parenting with model Gigi Hadid, Malik says that everything is good. They maintain a good relationship, putting their daughter as their top priority. While many fans think the cause of the end of his six-year relationship with Hadid was caused by Yolanda, Malik remains careful about what to say regarding the situation. At the end of the day, he believes that family matters should not be something that the world needs to know about. Malik mentions, “I believe I dealt with it in the best way. In an amicable, respectful way, and that’s all that needs to be said.” Most importantly, all that Malik says circles back to his daughter and how he did not want her to see any of those online or on the news when the time comes.
“Any sort of narrative online where my daughter was going to look back and read that and be able to read into it and it would just be something that was… There was no point.”
— Zayn Malik
Perhaps, what many people were looking forward to was what Malik has to say about One Direction. He gets candid on the fact that things were not always smooth sailing. He reveals that the group, despite being incredibly close, had gotten sick of each other. But even so, he would fondly look back at those moments he shared with them.
“I had great times with them, but yeah, we’d just run our course.”
— Zayn Malik on leaving One Direction
Malik also shared that his departure from One Direction was on his own terms, and he wanted to be the first one to leave. He said that a lot of politics was going on at that time and he just knew something was about to happen. He just got ahead of the curve.
Although Malik notes that transitioning to a solo career was a lot stressful, especially coming from a band for so long, he just used his solo music to be much more creative. He used the opportunity to explore more mature topics through his music, something that was not possible with One Direction.
There was a lot more to things shared by Malik, from fans hiding in bins to surprise him back when One Direction was in Sweden recording for, “What Makes You Beautiful,” to him moving to the suburbs in Pennsylvania to escape fame. You can listen to the podcast on Spotify and watch parts of it on YouTube.
Lastly, Malik teases fans that his fourth and new final album will be released soon. He says that it is a different sound from him. The album will be including some narrative going on like his real-life experiences where his daughter, Khai, will be mentioned a couple of times.
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