Zayn Malik is getting real.
The 30-year-old “Pillowtalk” singer just gave his first interview in six years, sitting down with Alex Cooper for her podcast Call Her Daddy. In the interview, he gave fans everything they’ve been wanting to know, commenting about his status with Gigi Hadid, their daughter Khai, the situation with him and Yolanda Hadid, and why he left One Direction.
Zayn, who has performed live just three times since 2016, said about releasing his new single “Love Like This” this month:
“I’m still nervous now cause it’s been a few years (since) I’ve been on stage, but I have this energy, too. I have something to give and I want to get on stage and be there again and feel that.”
He talked about the support from his fans:
“They’re always just like, ‘We’re here, we’ve got you.’ I gotta be super, super thankful for that and I’m super grateful. I feel that love for sure. I’m ready to prove these people right.”
The proud father spoke about Khai, his daughter with Gigi Hadid:
“When I’m with her, I don’t work at all. I just spend a full day with her doing things that she wants to do like painting, Play-Doh, this, that, go to the park, go to the theme park, go to the zoo. We just have fun.
I feel like I’ve rekindled my own childhood through her. I feel like we get to a certain point in adult life where everything’s kind of vague and gray and boring and she’s brought that color back for me.”
He adorably shared that at the young age of 2, Khai is already showing musical talent:
“Like, I’ll sing and she sings along. She can do good harmonies and stuff, already, and she’s only two-and-a-half. She harmonizes with me well and finishes notes and she can hold them for a long time. I’m like, you might have a bit of ability, you.”
He even spoke about why he left One Direction:
“I don’t want to go into too much detail, but there was a lot of politics going on, certain people were doing certain things, certain people didn’t want to sign contracts, so I knew something was happening so I just got ahead of the curve. Selfishly, I wanted to be the first person to make my own record.
There was obviously underlying issues, like within our friendships, too. We’d been together every day for five years and we got sick of each other, if I’m being completely honest,” he said. “We were close, you know, we did crazy things with each other and that nobody else in the world will ever understand or have the experiences that we’ve shared with each other. I look back on it now in a much fonder light than I would have if I just left. There were great experiences and great times, but yeah, we had just run our course.”
He went on to say that he now views the group in a “much fonder light.”
Zayn touched on the situation with Yolanda Hadid and what went down between them:
“I don’t tend to get involved when people say things online, whether it’s got something to do with me, or whether it doesn’t, because for me, time is my most valuable thing that I have in life and that takes so much time in a toxic environment to explain yourself to people and justify this so I just kind of keep to myself.
I knew what the situation was, I knew what happened and the people involved knew what happened, too. And that’s all I really cared about.”
He said this is he reason why he did not defend himself more online after the much-publicized incident between them:
“If anybody of a sane mind would look at the situation, I believe you could respect that I just didn’t want to bring attention to anything, y’know? I wasn’t trying to get into a negative back and forth with her.
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. I believe I dealt with it in the best way. In an amicable, respectful way, and that’s all that needs to be said.
If something happens in the family, I’d rather keep that between the family, you know? You don’t need a whole audience of people and opinions because it’s hard enough to manage between two.”
And as for his status with Gigi Hadid:
“Co-parenting is good. We have a really good relationship for Khai. She’s the main importance.
I’m super full on, like, hands on with my child every chance I can be. If I could get 60% [custody] I would have it.
I have her 50% of the time so that time I have with her is so important because I feel like she’s growing up so fast.”
