Zayn Malik thinks he would have been a college lecturer if he hadn’t found fame with One Direction.
The 24-year-old pop star became a household name when he was put into the group after auditioning for the 2010 series of ‘The X Factor’ and though he enjoys his music career, the ‘Still Got Time’ singer – who quit 1D in 2015 to go solo – can’t help but think about “alternative realities” and how his life might otherwise have turned out.
He said: “I think about alternative realities. I think I’d be at university and I would have done my English degree. I think I’d be looking for some employment to do with English lecturing or literature. “I love poetry and writing – obviously, I’m a songwriter – so, it would’ve been something that would still give me the feeling of a creative outlet within my writing.”
Zayn – who is dating model Gigi Hadid – thinks his decision to leave One Direction “reflected” the fact he was growing up and taking more control of his life. Speaking to V Man magazine in a preview obtained by E! News, he said: “I don’t think it was necessarily that experience that made me a man. I was becoming a man at that time anyway, and that experience was a validation of my decision-making at that time.
“Maybe I became a bit more in the driver’s seat – a bit more in control – and that was the first decision I made that reflected that in my life. I think it was a natural growth as a human being and as a person. I’m still growing every day, as everybody is.
The ‘Pillowtalk’ hitmaker who has found great success as a solo artist also shared his thoughts on social media. The 24-year-old former One Direction hunk might have a vast following on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, but the star isn’t a prolific user of either website as he finds the pressures of social media “ridiculous”, and has accused it of “breeding” a generation of followers, rather than leaders.
Speaking to VMAN magazine, Zayn said: “It’s become ridiculous to me. Even angles of pictures can’t be taken a certain way because that’s not the cool way to take an angle of a picture. Everyone’s personal opinions and what they believe in, how can you amalgamate all of that into one thing and expect that not to create a problem for people’s minds? That’s my personal opinion, that it’s not really that developing for us as people. That for me is the main reason why I don’t believe in social media: because I believe it breeds sheep and not lions.”
And it isn’t just social media that the ‘Pillowtalk’ hitmaker finds himself shying away from either, as he previously revealed is doesn’t believe is particularly “outgoing” in his daily life, and admitted is has been a whole year since he “properly showed his face” in public.
