Earlier this year, Louis Tomlinson admitted that he and Zayn Malik had reconciled their strained friendship since the Bradford bad boy’s abrupt exit from One Direction left things tense between them. Everyone remembers that war of the words they had on Twitter. A dark time. Louis noted that it was his mother, Johannah Deakin’s, dying wish for Louis to get back on good terms with his old pal. While Louis left the details vague, he admitted that he and Zayn got a chance to talk and they were friends again. Well, leave it to the “Pillowtalk” singer to stir the pot a little bit more than it needed to be.

Zayn spoke to Us Weekly about all things One Direction and his current relationship with Louis. Let’s just say, they aren’t exactly the best friends we thought that had become again.

“Yeah we spoke about that, we’re in touch, everything is on a civil level. It’s not the way it used to be, obviously we were a lot closer because we were together the entire time, spending 24 hours a day in the band and now we’re not so we’re living our own lives, we’re all growing as individual men and we still keep in touch and check in with each other not as much as we used to,” Zayn said.

UGH. Those words. “It’s not the way it used to be.” Those words are seriously killing us. Obviously, Zayn has a point. Why would it be the way it used to be? They aren’t constantly together. They aren’t making music together. Things have drastically changed. But, it’s just a bit heartbreaking to hear that even though they might be somewhat friends, they aren’t exactly on the level that we had hoped.

Zayn spilled the beans about his relationship with Harry Styles in the same interview revealing that he never even had a relationship with Hazza while in the band. So, obviously, now there wasn’t one either. That was a bombshell in and of itself. But, this, the whole thing with Louis, makes us really freaking sad especially because Louis made things seem so great.

Given the platform to talk about his days in One Direction and the friendships he made or didn’t make, Zayn didn’t hold back. He talked about his anxiety and how sometimes he physically was unable to be at a show or at an event because mental state of his was so crippling. He said, “People now have a better perspective on where I was coming from at the time and just an understanding that it wasn’t coming from necessarily being ungrateful shall we say or not aware of the opportunities that were in front of me. It was just me struggling with being able to actually be there. I’m definitely glad I got that off my chest.”

He continued, “We were basically chucked in the deep end of how the showbiz industry works and how everything’s gonna go. We were basically going at like 500 miles per hour. We did everything to an extreme in the band.” Extreme might be an understatement.

Zayn’s take on all of this, the band, the friendships, the music, has always been a bit skewed compared to the rest of the boys. It just goes to show what kind of dynamic he thought they all had in relation to what they thought they all had. While it’s pretty amazing that him and Louis could find the place within themselves to reconcile, it sounds like there’s just too much bad history for a best friend kind of thing to happen again.

Love J-14? Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for fun, exclusive videos with your favorite stars.