Zayn Malik’s mate Naughty Boy has accused One Direction star Louis Tomlinson of being ‘deliberately provocative’ following their recent war of words.
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The producer, who released a demo featuring Zayn online last month, got into a Twitter spat with Louis following Zayn’s exit from the boyband.
Naughty Boy and Louis Tomlinson
Now Naughty Boy has opened up about the feud, telling Heat magazine that he doesn’t think Louis is being fair to his former bandmate.
“There seems to be some needless provoking going on,” he told the mag.
“[Louis] was deliberately adding to the provoking. I don’t think that’s fair. Especially on Zayn, that’s not fair.”
He continued: “Right now, there needs to be calm. He could have said that to me privately. Doing it openly is another act of provocation that’s not needed.”
Zayn Malik
Naughty Boy went on to say that Zayn had been under huge amounts of pressure and that he had been there for him as a friend.
“I’ve been his friend,” he explained. “He needs one. Just because we were seen at my studio – you [don’t] necessarily just make music.
“People seem to forget that he’s under so much stress. Which is why he left the tour. There’s a lot going on. People get caught up – what he has done is to be normal.
“Sometimes being normal is to try and sort things out with your fiancée or hang around with a friend. That is normal.”
Music bosses were said to have got tough with the 22-year-old , who left One Direction last month, as Perrie and her Little Mix bandmates prepare to launch their next album.
But a rep for the star denied the claims, branding them 'absolute fabricated nonsense' and 'not true at all.'