The king is back

British Pakistani pop star Zayn Malik was a guest on the popular podcast ‘Call Her Daddy’ where he spoke about handling fatherhood as he shares daughter Khai with supermodel Gigi Hadid. The two started dating in 2015 but separated in 2021 and agreed to raise their daughter together.

The ‘Pillow Talk’ singer revealed that he is trying to become a good example for his daughter:

“That’s why I’m even doing this interview. I used to get a lot of anxiety around having a conversation like this, and I want her to look at me and be like, ‘Yo, my dad’s doing this!’” he said.

Malik and Hadid welcomed their daughter on September 2020 with a Twitter announcement:

“Our baby girl is here, healthy & beautiful,” Zayn wrote. “To try put into words how I am feeling right now would be an impossible task. The love I feel for this tiny human is beyond my understanding. Grateful to know her, proud to call her mine, & thankful for the life we will have together x.”

Our baby girl is here, healthy & beautiful🙏🏽❤️to try put into words how i am feeling right now would be an impossible task. The love i feel for this tiny human is beyond my understanding.Grateful to know her, proud to call her mine, & thankful for the life we will have together x pic.twitter.com/nvhfOkk2fw

— zayn (@zaynmalik) September 24, 2020

The high profile couple parted ways in 2021 after Malik wrote a post on Twitter, accusing Hadid’s mother Yolanda of trying to breach their daughter’s privacy

pic.twitter.com/Idwdx1PZdB

— zayn (@zaynmalik) October 28, 2021

In the podcast, Malik also talked about his time in ‘One Direction’. Addressing the controversial split which broke the hearts of millions of directioners around the world, the ‘Dusk Till Dawn’ singer revealed that during his time in the band, he felt ‘over-exposed’

“I feel like we were so overexposed in the band that that’s why I took the time that I have to not even necessarily do interviews.”

“They just said, ‘Oh yeah, you can be the mysterious one.’ That wasn’t necessarily my personality, I’m just chill, I know that a lot of people have high-energy personalities, and it’s just not the way I am.”

Malik also continued to say that the band members became “sick of each other”.

“I think I’ve known for a minute,” he told the host Alex Cooper. “Look I don’t want to go into too much detail, but there was a lot of politics going on, certain people were doing certain things, certain people didn’t want to sign contracts, so I knew something was happening.”

“There was obviously underlying issues, like within our friendships, too. We’ve been together every day for five years, and we got sick of each other, if I’m being completely honest. So we were close.”

Malik added that despite all that had happened, he can now look back at the band in a “much fonder light”.