One Direction’s Week in Review: 12/12
The band is on a break, but the boys aren’t.
One Direction last performed together on a Sunday night, Dec. 13th, 2015, on the season finale of the British iteration of “The X Factor.” They sang a single from their fifth album, accepted accolades from Simon Cowell and others, and then vanished into the night to begin a hiatus with no end-date. Between them, in the months since they last took the stage, they have officially announced very little —four solo record deals, the birth of a child, the founding of a golf management company. But each week they are out in the world, doing things, going places. This is what we know.
Louis Tomlinson’s single with Steve Aoki, a banger in honor of his late mother, debuted at #2 on the UK charts. He repeatedly thanked fans for their promo work. On Saturday he went out with his sister Lottie Tomlinson to celebrate her boyfriend’s 21st birthday.
VIDEO || Dunkirk official trailer! https://t.co/8BvdUhTwhD
On Wednesday, the trailer for Dunkirk, Harry Styles’ first feature film, was released. Styles appears in it several times: swimming, sitting, turning, crouching, and drowning. The film’s poster was also released: it features a man who is almost certainly Styles staring down destruction. He didn’t tweet about either — Will he ever tweet again? Probably? But possibly not? He spent the day — and the eve — in London with his mother. On Thursday, he Facetimed with a sick fan. On Friday, he played Heads Up with One Direction hairstylist Lou Teasdale, her twin sister Sam Teasdale, and Sam’s husband Tomo Campbell; had fun with sparklers with Jack Guinness and Alexa Chung; and sang “Last Christmas” with Chung while reading lyrics from a phone, though he was more animated — and sure — singing along to the Spice Girls’ “Two Become One” from the crowd. All of Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw’s friends were in attendance, but Grimshaw was not.
On Tuesday, Niall Horan sang his single on The Tonight Show. On Wednesday, he performed at the Jingle Ball in Chicago, his last performance on the tour. He described the temp as “baltic,” which was not a misremembering of the word “arctic” as this reporter (ha) rudely assumed, but Irish slang for “cold.” The day before, at the tour’s stop in Boston, he had a moment on a pier and a laugh with Ellie Goulding. He then flew to London, where, on Friday, he enjoyed a Christmas night out that ended in a pile of men and a chest infection.
UPDATE || Liam hanging out at a recording studio in LA recently!
Liam Payne was spotted outside a recording studio wearing a big chain and jeans with at least four holes in each leg. (Louis Tomlinson mocked him on Twitter for his neckware, a nice moment of levity.) On Saturday, he did a Twitter q and a, where, among other things, he divulged he believed not in god but in Kanye. Okay.
Notable Adjacent News
Niall Horan’s friend and fellow Irishman (and fellow Niall) Niall Breslin‘s band The Blizzards covered “This Town.”
Gemma Styles, sister of Harry Styles, watched the Dunkirk trailer and was slightly traumatized.
Dan Deakin, husband of Johannah Deakin, Louis Tomlinson’s mother who died of leukemia last week, tweeted to fans from her Twitter account on Tuesday. “Hi, it’s Dan. Johannah asked for me to send this afterwards. She wanted to thank you all, and to let you know that you have been amazing right from the start. You changed Louis’ life, but also her life. Your support now is as strong if not stronger than ever. So from Johannah one last time, thank you for everything xxx ❤”