Louis Tomlinson Opens Up About the "Cold" Moment One Direction Decided to Split Up.
Louis Tomlinson is thinking about how quickly the night shifts. The former member of One Direction recalled the day when he, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and the late Liam Payne decided to leave the band in 2016. He clarified that just because it was a collaborative decision, it did not make it any easier.
“The room felt cold that day,” Louis recounted during the Diary of a CEO podcast's October 8 episode. “I can remember that in particular.”
Being a "glass half full kind of guy," the now 33-year-old initially attempted to dismiss his feelings that One Direction, which was established on The X Factor in 2010, was coming to an end. Until he was no longer able to.
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“It was awful,” he divulged. “It wasn’t until after the event that I realized that I actually computed all of these feelings. But it was like I was straight grieving for it—grieving the band.”
Louis noted that although he had dealt with sadness before, this "felt different," but it was ultimately "a version of the same thing."
“What's really fascinating is those real serious moments—we wouldn't have a lot of them in One Direction,” he clarified. “We were just kind of going with the flow and really happy for each other and stuff like that. But I think those kinds of moments where you have to be selfish, it was an atmosphere that I never really felt in the band.”
The group began “thinking more independently.” which was a change for all of them. Zayn Malik was a part of the group until his departure in 2015.
“These are all the same faces that I've seen every single day, but I've never quite felt an energy like that in the room,” Louis stated. “There was this emptiness. And I think probably because we knew, we all knew, collectively, where it was going.”
When One Direction was coming to the decision to separate, Louis was also adamant about not using the word "hiatus," which was how the breakup was finally handled, even though he admits it was "naïve" of him.
“I remember saying, well, if I want to try and do some stuff on my own, and at this point I didn't even know what I was going to do, I was like, be good to know how long this break’s gonna be for,” he stated. “So, let's speculate. A year? Two years? Five years? 10 years? 15 years? I never really got an answer to that question, which I understand now.”
He now understands that individuals who made the decision were most likely not "brave enough to address that question deep down."
“I think they probably knew the reality,” Louis, who previously acknowledged that he finds it impossible to envision One Direction getting back together after Liam's death in 2024, added, “and that's why it was tough.”
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