What a ride! From nowhere to super stardom in just a few short years, One Directions’s ‘Take Me Home’ tour is currently taking them through Europe. Tickets are super requested and continue to sell like hot cakes but there are still some to be found online if you’re quick.
But Zayn Malik had a taste of the other side of fame when, following the horrific murder in Woolwich, he became the target of a wave of racist and religious abuse, simply because he is proudly a Muslim. His Mum, Trisha, took to her Twitter account to take on the ‘psychos and trolls’ who had so upset Zayn.
Last year, Liam Payne, had to leap to the defence of his friend Tom who jokingly posted a jealous kidnap threat after Liam was pictured with Real Madrid’s Christian Ronald. A large swathe of Liam’s 10 million plus followers took it all a bit too seriously, and a vicious tweet attack was Tom’s reward.
So, just being a friend of a star can be dangerous; and the closer the friend the more dangerous. Even being a star herself was no protection for Taylor Swift, the now ex-girlfriend of Harry Styles, when their relationship was in a better place.
She was bombarded with hateful tweets from jealous fans, being labelled as a cougar due to the fact that she’s a whole year older. And as for a Taylor Swift look-alike; she was actually attacked in the street by a group of One Direction fans.
It was pretty much the same for Niall Horan’s friend, drama student, Amy Green, when she was described as ‘girlfriend’ by a journalist. As usual these days Twitter was the weapon of choice and poor Amy received a major attack that had Niall leaping to her defence.
Which just leaves Louis Tomlinson; has he been immune to Twitter warfare? Not a bit of it; as well as his mother Jay being abused on Twitter for not having ‘aborted him before birth’ in November last year, Louis has to put up a Twitter defence of girlfriend Eleanor Calder; alongside the rescue of his mother.
The on-going criticism just goes to show that being at the top brings its fair share of unwanted attention alongside the good. Perhaps that’s inevitable and the boys, their friends and family will become hardened to it, but it can weather even the hardest skin when you’re so new to the business.
Hopefully Zayn will be able to put the particularly unpleasant racial taunts out of mind for the rest of the ‘Take Me Home’ Tour. Remember the ‘Where We Are’ tour is set to kick off in Bogotá in April 2014 so the boys are going to be busy, so there is a hope that fans will turn their thoughts toward that and away from nasty tweets!
