Louis Tomlinson is uninterested in any One Direction disputes. He's even willing to fight a reporter just to keep mum about the supposed beef happening with his former band and about the disagreement between Liam Payne and Zayn Malik in particular.
He demonstrated this by dismissing a query from Australian news correspondents on July 20 regarding the recent feud between former One Direction members Liam Payne and Zayn Malik, and then calling them out on it.
After the hosts of "The Project" specifically addressed "the bit of 1D beef," and asked how he feels looking back on his years in the boy band, Liam, 30, quickly replied, "So the fishing's begun already ... I see what you're doing."
He then fondly recalled his time spent with Harry, Liam, Zayn, 29, and Niall.
"I'm immensely proud, as I know Liam is," he said. "I'm immensely proud of those days, obviously. I mean, it was an incredible thing to do, especially to do at such a young age. Amazing memories, man, amazing memories."
The hosts interpreted the response from the "Two of Us" singer as a refusal to discuss his boyband days at all.
"Louis, when you said, 'All the phishing's begun,' and I mentioned it is so annoying having to answer retrospective questions like that, I'm genuinely interested, how much do you wanna talk about that time in your life to the media versus you how much you never wanna have to talk about it again?" the female co-host, Carrie Bickmore, asked.
READ MORE: Slipknot New Album Tracklist LEAKED Amid Hinting Upcoming Project
"No good, good question," Louis answered. "I'm more than happy to talk about it in every interview ... It's just when you mentioned the beef before, it sounded like you were ready to stir some s-t up, that's all I'm saying."
After criticizing Zayn Malik during a May interview on Logan Paul's Impulsive podcast, Liam was questioned about the dispute less than two months later.
During the podcast, Logan and his co-hosts recalled a disagreement Jake Paul had with Zayn and Gigi Hadid in 2020, during which the supermodel defended her ex-boyfriend by calling him a "respectful king" after labeling Jake "irrelevant." Liam joked in reference to Zayn and Gigi's breakup following Zayn's guilty plea to harassing Gigi's mother, Yolanda Hadid, "... that one didn't age well."
He went on to express both favorable and negative thoughts regarding his former bandmate.
"There's many reasons why I dislike Zayn and there's many reasons why I'll always, always be on his side," he continued. "If I had had to go through what he went through, through his growth and whatever else. You know are your parents very supportive?"
The news that One Direction had disbanded broke the hearts of millions of people around the world, but the gifted singers have all established successful solo careers and have continued recording music independently. While the members of the popular boy band haven't played together since their first split, that hasn't stopped them from discussing each other in interviews throughout the years.
While the majority of rumors concern Malik, the first member of One Direction to leave the group, there are also intriguing rumors about the relationship between Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles.
According to Elite Daily, Styles and Tomlinson's close connection caused people to believe they were romantically involved. Tomlinson, who was dating Eleanor Calder at the time, was upset."It created this atmosphere between the two of us where everyone was looking to everything we did," Tomlinson shared.
Eventually, these rumors dissipated.
READ ALSO: Harry Styles Course Offered: Solo Albums, One Direction Work to be Dissected [Details]
