One Direction kicked off the release of their studio album live on The Today Show this morning, but one member of the boy band was absent!
Where was Zayn Malik? And does his absence point to a more serious issue? Watch their live performances here and the new acoustic version of their song “Night Changes”!
The boys of 1D looked pretty cool as they rolled in to the Universal Orlando Resort stage in a speedboat. But that’s when Matt Lauer got nosy and asked Liam Payne about “the obvious”, “I’m counting chairs here and I see four, normally we’re used to seeing you guys with five…Where is Zayn?”
Liam responded, “Yeah, he’s got the stomach flu. He’s not very well at the moment. We only found out this morning, we’re sad as well that he can’t be here. It’s still going to be a great day, I’m sure!”
Matt pressed further, asking, “Liam, obviously, there is a lot of concern, a lot of fans have been tweeting over night, a lot of action on social media about him. Is there something more serious than just a minor illness? There have been rumors of substance abuse…what’s going on?”
But Liam was cool as a cucumber, saying “No, he’s just got a tummy bug, so he’s not very well, he’s okay”.
The 15,000 fans booed at Matt for getting so personal, but they also literally cried out cheers of joy and overstimulation when Harry Styles shook his hair forward, ran his fingers through his sexy long locks and then flipped it back at 2:39 (the real highlight of the whole interview + performance, IMO).
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Did Zayn miss his flight to America and stay home ill as a cover for substance abuse, or perhaps a salon day (he recently debuted a skeptical looking middle part when meeting the Duchess of Cambridge last week)?
Zayn was also notably absent in the videos the band recorded to accept their wins for Biggest Fans, Best Pop and Best Live Performance at MTV EMA’s last week.
The band went on to perform “Steal My Girl,” “Best Song Ever,” “What Makes You Beautiful” and “Little Things”, while the hashtag #GetWellZayn was trending on twitter worldwide.
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Quite the happening @UniversalORL #1DToday pic.twitter.com/mErr0FQ0K1
— Al Roker (@alroker) November 17, 2014
See all their performances here!
[Lead photo credit: Al Roker’s Twitter]
