It's been almost a year since Zayn Malik revealed that he would be leaving One Direction and he finally announced that he will be releasing his first official single as a solo artist on Friday, "Pillow Talk."
Not only is he releasing the single that day but he will be appearing on The Graham Norton Show as well to discuss the song and what he has been working on for his upcoming, untitled album.
For the past few months, Malik has spent time recording with Frank Ocean. He's also been doing several interviews, including one with The Fader, where he threw some shade at his former bandmates in One Direction.
"That's not music I would listen to," he told The Fader. "Would you listen to One Direction 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. As much as I was in that band, and I loved everything that we did, that's not music that I would listen to. I want to make music that I think is cool shit. I don't think that's too much to ask for."
In the interview, he spoke about how it wasn't about ticket sales for him and music became more about reaching the people that he personally wanted to reach. He wanted listeners to believe in what he was singing, and he would only be able to do so as a solo artist.
It seemed their music wasn't the only thing Malik trash-talked either. In an interview with Billboard, he also claimed to no longer keep in contact with his former bandmates, and that some of them even changed their phone numbers.
“The truth of it is, you can think one thing about a situation and the total opposite can happen," he told Billboard. "I had every intention of remaining friends with everybody, but I guess certain phone numbers have changed and I haven’t received calls from a lot of people. I’ve reached out to a few of them and not got a reply. Certain people have pride issues, but it’s stuff you overcome in time.”