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After Zayn Malik described One Direction's songs as "generic as fuck", Simon Cowell has called the former boyband member "rude." Malik left the band in mid-2015, prior to the release of their fifth album, Made In The A.M. Since then, he's had Twitter spats with Naughty Boy and former bandmate Louis Tomlinson.
Malik quit his job as one fifth of the biggest boyband in the world back in March - but, he revealed in an interview with The Fader, he'd been gearing up to leave since the band formed on The X Factor in 2010.
Speaking of his unhappiness with the band's music, he explained, "There was never any room for me to experiment creatively in the band. If I would sing a hook or a verse slightly R&B, or slightly myself, it would always be recorded 50 times until there was a straight version that was pop, generic as fuck, so they could use that version."
Now, speaking to The Mirror, Simon Cowell - under whose label One Direction are signed to, and who created the show (The X Factor) which put the band together - has responded to Malik's comments.
"I think once he has had a chance to reflect on everything he will probably reconsider what he’s said," suggested Cowell, "because it was a very, very democratic process in the band. It is a bit rude to the people who wrote all the hits with them. And to the other band members. I mean they all wrote a lot of the stuff."
He added, "To be honest I don’t even think about it too much because as soon as he left we sorted him out with a label who really were enthusiastic about him and then my loyalty was back with the boys. Life could have been a lot worse, right?"
Malik signed as a solo artist to RCA in July. His currently untitled debut solo album is due for release in early 2016.
