Louis Tomlinson Sets the Record Straight: Was It Harry Styles or Zayn Malik Who Split One Direction?

Louis Tomlinson opens up on One Direction’s split in a limited-release sit-down on Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO, revealing what went down in the band’s final pre-hiatus meeting and igniting fan speculation over whether he meant Harry Styles or Zayn Malik.

Louis Tomlinson is finally talking about the awkward end of One Direction, and yeah, it sounds exactly as tense as you imagined. On Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO — the episode got a limited theatrical roll-out — Louis walked through the final meeting before the band pressed pause, and fans are already playing detective about who he was really talking about. His comments also line up neatly with what Zayn Malik said back in 2023. And, in a twist, Louis and Zayn are set to reunite on camera soon.

The last big meeting: just the boys... sort of

Bartlett asked the obvious: was this a Simon Cowell-led summit, or did management set it up? Louis says it was just the five of them in a room — exactly how it should have been — but the vibe didn’t feel like the tight unit they used to be. He says they rarely had heavy, strategic conversations in 1D; most of the time they just followed the momentum. When things did get serious, people started thinking about themselves. Not illegal. Just new for them. The temperature in the room dropped.

"Truthfully, I don’t think the people or person involved were brave enough to answer that question deep down. They probably knew the reality, and that’s why it was tough."

He’s talking about the word they used a million times: 'hiatus.' He called it a cringe word. He wanted a timeline for coming back. He never got one.

Who was he hinting at? Fans think they know

Louis never names names. But fans online immediately connected dots and decided he might be referring to Harry Styles rather than Zayn. Their logic: Louis and Zayn have a friendly reunion going right now, so it doesn’t fit that he’d be dragging Zayn. Plus, people pointed back to Zayn’s 2023 interview, where he said he realized some members weren’t signing new deals, so he got out early instead of pretending the 'hiatus' was a real pause.

What Zayn said in 2023, and why it matters here

On the Call Her Daddy podcast, Zayn explained that once he saw others weren’t re-upping contracts, he decided to leave first. He admitted it was a selfish move, but he wanted to make his own record on his own timeline. He described himself as laid-back in general but dead serious and competitive about music and business. He also said the group had underlying issues by then and, frankly, everyone was burnt out on each other. If you lay Louis’s 'cold room' story on top of Zayn’s 'I saw the writing on the wall' explanation, the picture gets pretty clear.

Louis and Zayn are hitting the road together... on Netflix

Whatever tension there was, it isn’t stopping a reunion. The two are teaming up for a three-part Netflix documentary series directed by Nicola Marsh. It follows Louis and Zayn on a road trip across North America, where they’ll talk life, loss, and being dads. Campfire Studios is producing — they’re the folks behind SmartLess: On the Road and America’s Sweethearts: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders — and the series is expected to land in 2026. Reports say Niall Horan and Harry Styles aren’t part of this one.

• Format: three-part doc series, road trip across North America
• Director: Nicola Marsh
• Producer: Campfire Studios (SmartLess: On the Road; America’s Sweethearts: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders)
• Target release: 2026
• Who’s in: Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik; who’s not: Niall Horan, Harry Styles (per early reports)
• Dad life: Louis has a 9-year-old son with ex Briana Jungwirth; Zayn has a 5-year-old daughter with ex Gigi Hadid

About the 'hiatus' label, in plain English

Louis says everyone knew where that meeting was going because they’d been pulling in different directions for a while. He admits he was stubborn about getting any kind of promise they’d return. He never got one, and in his view, someone in the room probably already knew they wouldn’t be back.

Where Louis is at now

He recently opened up in Rolling Stone UK about navigating grief in his life, especially after losing his mom, Johannah Deakin, to leukemia in 2016 and his sister, Félicité Tomlinson, to a drug overdose in 2019. He says those losses still shape how he moves through big moments now.

Bottom line: Louis’s story about that final 1D meeting lines up with Zayn’s version of events, fans are convinced they know who didn’t want back in, and Louis and Zayn will actually be on screen together soon to talk through the past — and everything that came after.