One Direction Reportedly Planning New Single, TV Special For 10-Year Anniversary

One Direction is reportedly planning a new single and television special for the band’s 10-year anniversary on July 23, reported Page Six. The news outlet claims they have information from a source that reveals this music milestone is currently in the works. Longtime fans of the music group can, however, rule out the possibility of a tour. At the moment, this reunion appears to be a one-off celebratory event.

Rumors of a reunion surfaced after eagle-eyed One Direction fans saw that band members Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson had all began to follow Zayn Malik on Twitter. Malik, thus far, has not followed any of his former band members back on the social media site.

The former members, minus Zayn, have also re-followed the official One Direction Twitter account and the band’s former website has been reactivated.

There has been no love lost between the aforementioned four singers and Zayn since he abruptly exited the band in March 2015, and then spoke about his unhappiness as a member of One Direction during a Beats 1 interview.

“I think I kind of always wanted to go, from like, the first year, really. I never really wanted to be there in the band,” reported Billboard of Zayn’s statements in the interview.

However, there is still the possibility that Zayn could reunite with his former band members for this celebratory offering to their longtime fans.

“There’s still a long way to go and a lot of hurdles. Obviously, at the moment anything they do would have to be done virtually. But there’s a lot of goodwill between them now and they want to make something happen,” said a source that is reportedly close to the band’s management to Page Six.

The band last performed together, minus Zayn Malik, in 2015. Since the band’s hiatus, they have each gone their separate ways musically.

Harry Styles, who has achieved the most notable success since the band’s split, released two successful albums: Harry Styles in 2017 and Fine Line in 2019. Niall Horan debuted his first solo album in 2017 with Flicker. Zayn Malik released Mind of Mine in 2016 and Icarus Falls in 2018. Liam Payne released his first solo effort in 2019 called LP1, and Louis Tomlinson released Walls the same year.

One Direction found fame on England’s talent competition series The X Factor, where they all performed as individual acts and were assembled into a group by series judge Simon Cowell. The singing group would eventually come in third place on the show.

One Direction would later be signed by Simon Cowell and groomed into megastardom, becoming boy band royalty and releasing the albums Up All Night, Take Me Home, Midnight Memories, Four, and Made in the A.M. The band would eventually rack up over 25 million sales worldwide.