Simon Cowell shocked the audience at the Music Industry Trusts event, where he was presented an award from One Direction. He brought up departed member, Zayn Malik, during his speech.
The group he put together on X Factor UK presented him with the 24th MITS award at the event held at London's Grosvenor Hotel on Monday night.
"Just by luck I get the award I've been wanting all my life and I'm completely hammered,” he first said when accepting the award from Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan. “Guys, who misses Zayn?"
The audience roared in laughter and he followed it up with, "We all get old but I've still got charisma," The Mirror reports.
Before Cowell accepted the award, which is for both his charity work and contributions to the music industry, Payne said on behalf of the boy band, “We could never have imaged how Simon was going to transform our lives."
Malik quit One Direction back in March and Cowell admitted afterwards that he wanted to “jump off a cliff” when Malik told him about quitting.