Grab the tissues Directioners. Zayn Malik is leaving One Direction’s On the Road Again world tour — for now, Us Weekly can confirm.
“Zayn has signed off with stress and is flying back to the UK to recuperate,” a spokesperson for the band said in a statement to Us on Thursday, Mar. 19. “The band wish him well and will continue with their performances in Manila and Jakarta.” No other details were provided.
Earlier in the day, Malik’s bandmate Liam Payne cryptically tweeted: “What a day.”
The news comes just one day after the singer slammed rumors that he’s cheating on his fiancee Perrie Edwards, after a photo of Malik hanging out with a mystery blonde in Thailand surfaced online.
“I’m 22 years old…I love a girl named Perrie Edwards,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “And there’s a lot of jealous f—ks in this world. I’m sorry for what it looks like x.” (Malik popped the question to the Little Mix singer, 21, in August 2013.)
Malik isn’t a stranger to controversy. In November 2014, the rocker sat out of a highly publicized interview with Today show’s Matt Lauer in Orlando, Fla. His bandmates said that he had a stomach bug, but Lauer pushed about rumors of substance abuse. In response, Malik lashed out on Twitter. “I’m really angry and upset by what was said on the Today show,” he wrote at the time. “I was really ill at the weekend, that’s why I couldn’t fly to America.”
