Among the millions of supporters in One Direction’s fervent fan base, each of the group’s five members is somebody’s favorite. When it comes to pure vocal ability, though, Liam Payne thinks that of all of them, the best singer was Zayn Malik.
Payne is the subject of a new interview in British GQ, and the conversation found its way to Zayn’s “difficulties with fame and anxiety.” After speaking about his own motivations for entering the music industry, he said, “But here’s the thing: you just don’t know until you get there whether you’re built for this or not. For Zayn, he loves music and he’s an amazing talent. He genuinely was the best singer in One Direction, hand on heart, out of all of us. But for him to get to a point where, you know, he can’t step on a stage? It’s a lot.”
Payne went on to say that while Zayn is by no means struggling with his career now, he believes that Zayn misses performing live, saying, “I mean, he’s doing great. His streaming numbers are ridiculous but I do think he misses out on the performance side a bit, you know. He can’t seem to get past that part. […] We all have our little beasties in that sort of scenario. But this era of talent shows, it is dangerous and some people just don’t know what they are getting into.”
Read the full interview here.
