Louis Tomlinson Opens Up About One Direction, Their Hiatus, and His Solo Music

Louis Tomlinson is getting ready to take over the summer with his new track “Back To You” and is getting ready to do so by opening up about all the good and bad moments he's undergone in his life. The singer is even opening up about his time in One Direction, and what hearing about the split was really like for him in an in-depth interview with The Guardian.

We've rounded up a quick list of all the most noteworthy admissions he made in the interview, and they reveal a side to Louis fans have never seen before.

Louis always felt forgettable compared to the other guys in 1D.

He admits, “The others have always been… Like Niall, for example. He’s the most lovely guy in the world. Happy-go-lucky Irish, no sense of arrogance. And he’s fearless. There are times I’ve thought: ‘I’d have a bit of that.’ Zayn, back in the day. He could relate to me on a nerves level. In the first year we were both the least confident. But Zayn has a fantastic voice and for him it was always about owning that. Liam always had a good stage presence, same as Harry, they’ve both got that ownership. Harry comes across very cool. Liam’s all about getting the crowd going, doing a bit of dancing…”

“And then there’s me.”

Louis became One Direction's unofficial spokesman.

He admits, “And if there was any bad news that needed giving to the label I’d always be designated to have the argument.”

Louis never felt like the most confident singer while the band was on The X Factor.

He admits, “You know I didn’t sing a single solo on the X Factor. A lot of people can take the piss out of that. But when you actually think about how that feels, standing on stage every single week, thinking: ‘What have I really done to contribute here? Sing a lower harmony that you can’t really hear in the mix?”

According to Louis it's also how he became known as, "the kid wearing espadrilles, stood in’t back.”

The band's hiatus caught Louis off-guard.

“In the last year of One Direction I was probably the most confident I ever was. And then it was: ‘OK, hiatus!'"

"It wasn’t necessarily a nice conversation. I could see where it was going," he continued to say.

“If you’d asked me a year or 18 months ago: ‘Are you going to do anything as a solo artist?’ I’d have said absolutely not," he added.

Auditioning for Simon Cowell changed his life in way he never imagined.

Louis admits, “I told myself I’ve just got to get to Simon, get his opinion, that’s all my ambition was. Then all of a sudden everything changed. To my friends in Doncaster I would always say [getting into the band] was the most incredible thing that happened to me. And it was. But it happened when I was already having the best year of my life. I was 17, 18, just started driving, didn’t need fake ID any more, going to house parties. That’s the time. That’s the age. And to a certain degree… ‘Having it taken away’ is the wrong phrase. But there was a price to pay.”

Louis feels as if he hasn't earned the wealth and status he has achieved.

He admits, “This is the sort of sh— I think about. And I know, I know it sounds ungrateful. But I think about a man, on a nine-to-five, working his a— off for six months so he can go to his family and say: ‘Guys, I’m taking you to Disneyland.’ That moment… I’ll never have that in my family life. And I’ve worked hard. But I’ve never worked hard, not like that.”

Working on solo music has made Louis realize that certain songwriters only wanted to work with 1D

He admits, “I couldn’t say to you now that I could definitely get a superstar writer in a session with me. And I understand that.”

“Harry won’t struggle with any of that,” Louis adds.

Louis hopes his solo music will show fans he's just like anybody else.

“Although my problems might look a hell of a lot different they’re actually, fundamentally, the same. Loss feels the same. Heartbreak feels the same. The fundamental hurtful things for a human are all the same. And I feel like I have to push that constantly, that humanised… The humanised feeling," he admits.

Playing The X Factor after losing his mother wasn’t easy, but it was she told him to do it.

He admits, “I remember saying to her: ‘Mum, how the f— do you expect me to do this now?’ And she didn’t swear much, my mum. She’d always tell me off for swearing. And this time she was like: ‘You’ve got to f— do it, it’s as simple as that.’ It was football manager, team talk stuff.’”

“I’m not gonna claim this is all for me mum. But it was definitely… It was…," he continued to say.

Louis' mother, Johannah Deakin was the one who always pushed him to be his best self.

“Sometimes my reservation, or my confidence, might have prevented me from doing something. And I’ve needed a mum in the past to kick me up the a— and go: ‘You’re doing it,’” he revealed.

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#HONESTLouis Tomlinson Is Opening Up About His Life and Time in One Direction Like Never Before