One Direction’s Future Called Into Question By Niall Horan’s Silence [Video]

As is the case with all boy bands, they invariably come to an end. Thus, the silence by Niall Horan in a new video via Hollywood Life suggests One Direction’s final future has arrived.

“As Niall was greeted with a plethora of questions about 1D breaking up,” the article read, “the singer made sure to stay entirely silent on the subject. He continued to pick up his pace, obviously trying to get the h*ck out of dodge.”

One Direction started out as a finalist on the Simon Cowell-produced singing competition The X Factor in 2010 and quickly took the preteen world by storm. The group’s successful run of albums began with Up All Night in 2011 all the way to last year’s Made in the A.M. But soon after the release, the band announced that seminal member Zayn Malik was quitting, and from there, things seemed to crumble in the 1D world.

“My life with One Direction has been more than I could ever have imagined. But, after five years, I feel like it is now the right time for me to leave the band,” Malik explained in a statement to Billboard last year.

“I am leaving because I want to be a normal 22-year-old who is able to relax and have some private time out of the spotlight. I know I have four friends for life in Louis, Liam, Harry and Niall. I know they will continue to be the best band in the world.”

The rest of the band, meanwhile, told James Corben, as reported by People, that they were a little mad at first but ultimately came around to what was going in Zayn’s mind.

“At first we were a little bit angry. We were surprised, but I think we all knew the general vibe that Zayn was feeling,” 1D’s Liam Payne said. “There were certain parts of this job that Zayn loved and certain parts of the job that he didn’t. If you don’t like your job, you’ve got to follow your heart sometimes and go where you need to go. There’s no argument with that.”

Regardless, One Direction has been on a hiatus ever since, and Niall’s behavior suggests they’ve moved past the point of no return, as Hollywood Life suggests.

“It’s definitely hard to say whether Niall will for sure be making sweet music with the remaining four members. Harry Styles, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson have all claimed that the band is only on hiatus for the next year or so. However, fans have grown worried that the boys will get used to their lives apart, especially considering the fact that Harry just signed a MAJOR solo deal with Columbia Records on June 23.”

If Harry Styles’ contract signing is any indication, it looks like One Direction could go the way of other boy bands like NKOTB or NSync before them.

Justin Timberlake famously broke away from the global phenomenon that was NSync in 2002 following three financially successful records as a group. His 2002 solo album, Justified, launched Timberlake from simply being a boy band singer to a globally recognized superstar.

Nick Jonas is another recent example of a group player making it big on their own after the Jonas Brothers broke up in the mid-2000s. And while Official Charts pointed out that Joe Jonas looked like the bonafide star at first, Nick Jonas has a top 20 summer album out now, Last Year Was Complicated.

What do you think? Will One Direction reunite, or is their hiatus a permanent one? And which member, if any, will strike it big on their own?

[Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images]