Zayn Malik has announced that he's leaving One Direction, a declaration that Directioners have been fearing for weeks, following in the rumors of his infidelity and general dissatisfaction. We're not suggesting that the group is officially done, but the history of boy bands suggests that when one member decides to leave the fold, that's a good indication the honeymoon, and often the group itself, is over. Here are five cases of major members leaving a boy group and what happened afterward.
The Jackson 5 (1975)
Believe it or not, Michael Jackson wasn't the first member of the Jackson 5 to call it quits. Rather, it was his brother Jermaine that formally left the group first. It wasn't that he thought himself better than the group (well, maybe a little bit), but that contractual issues created a mess for the future of the quintet. It turned out—not surprisingly in retrospect—that the group was receiving a raw deal from Motown Records...less than 3 percent of royalties made their way back to the boys. Father Joe Jackson decided to take his sons to Epic, where they would receive much more generous payouts. The issue was that Jermaine, at that point 21 and legally able to make these decisions himself, decided to stay with Motown as a solo performer. Of course, he had already done plenty of solo work for the label, as had Michael. The Jackson 5 act had been in decline for several years, so the decision wasn't as tough as it sounds. Randy Jackson would replace Jermaine in the group (now simply called The Jacksons because of contractual issues with Motown) but it would never be the same.
New Kids on The Block (1985)
The most famous member of New Kids on The Block actually left the band before it had even released an album. We refer, of course, to Mark Wahlberg. Marky Mark didn't have much of an impact on the massive success of NKOTB, but the group really hit a snag when it separated from Maurice Starr, who took the group under his wing after splitting with New Edition (more later). New Kids ran into trouble during 1992, when a former producer alleged that the group lip-synced and that Starr, himself a former gospel performer, had sung lead on the act's records. Although Starr had only contributed to the recordings, the news hit hard, considered the recent Milli Vanilli scandal that shook the music industry. New Kids tried to rebrand themselves by changing its name to an acronym and by parting ways with Starr. It may have been over already, but dropping its talented producer didn't help any.
New Edition (1986)
New Edition is somewhat an oddity on this list because it wasn't one member who opted out of the group after it reached success. Instead, the band opted to kick out one of its most popular members because of his bad behavior. We refer to, of course, Bobby Brown, but drugs weren't the issue. Apparently the founder of the group was jealous of the attention heaped upon fellow members such as Roger Tresvant, and often disrupted choreographed performance numbers to better the. No one knows who voted which way (although its believed MCA heavily influenced the decision) but Brown was booted during 1986. Another interesting way this story differs from the rest of the narratives in this list is that New Edition actually rose to greater commercial success without Brown. He wasn't bitter however, launching his own solo career and having several platinum albums of his own, and even opened for his former group in concert. His success still led the band to ultimately dissolve however: Although it never technically "broke up," New Edition's members all took time to pursue their own solo gigs.
NSYNC (2004)
Ah, yes. Here's the breakup that most twenty-somethings will sue as a reference point to the strife that Directioners are currently undergoing. It was never any surprise that Justin Timberlake was going to be the member to finally split from the group and go solo, but fortunately the quintet planned its dissolution over a prolonged period to make sure that its legions of fans didn't collectively kill themselves. The hiatus more-or-less started after the band's "Celebrity" tour during 2002, but the five members continued to make limited appearances, at The Grammys and at its annual NSYNC Challenge for Children events, to leave some glimmer of hope. Timberlake reportedly called it quits during 2004 but the band didn't formally fold until 2005, by which most people had gotten used to the idea that NSYNC wasn't going to be bouncing back. Timberlake seems to have done alright for himself.
The Backstreet Boys (2006)
Some acts weren't as quick as NSYNC at figuring out that the boy band wave had come to an end. The Backstreet Boys remained remarkably resilient until 2006, when Kevin Richardson finally called it quits (our money had always been on Nick Carter). His leaving had little to do with the band's breakup however...as you may now be realizing the Backstreet Boys never broke up. Richardson was technically separated from the group until 2012, but he had performed a number of one-off concerts with the group, while the rest of the members have remained faithful to the cause for more than 20 years. As Backstreet proclaimed on its first album following Richardson's leaving: they were Unbreakable.
