LONDON — One Direction star Zayn Malik has flown home to Britain to deal with "stress" following an uproar over pictures of him with a woman at a Phuket club.
Malik's departure came a day after he hit back on Twitter at rumours of trouble in his relationship with fiancee Perrie Edwards of the band Little Mix. "I'm 22 years old ... I love a girl named Perrie Edwards," he wrote.
The band said it would continue with the tour, which includes performances in Manila on Saturday and Sunday and Jakarta on Wednesday.
The internet was abuzz after photographs emerged of Malik posing with a young British woman at a nightclub in Phuket, where the band had gone to take a break after its Bangkok show on March 14.
“He spent two minutes with her at the club," a friend told the London newspaper The Mirror.
"She grabbed his hand and he was happy to pose for a photo. But it has turned into this whole other thing online."
The boy band's publicist Simon Jones said, "Zayn has been signed off with stress and is flying back to the UK to recuperate."
He said it was not clear whether Malik would rejoin the tour for three scheduled dates in South Africa starting on March 28.
Many fans in the Philippines were heartbroken Malik would not be in Manila. Patrisha Yacob, a 14-year-old high school student who spent 15,000 pesos (10,900 baht) for a concert ticket, told The Associated Press on Friday that she cried when she found out Malik will not be performing.
"My sunshine is not complete. I thought I will see them all but now I will only see only four members," she said.
Fan Rachel Marcelino believes concert producers should give ticket buyers a discount because the band is incomplete. She also expressed disappointment with Malik's "shallow" reason for not coming to Manila.
"Some artists when they get sick, they still perform," she added.
The Philippines earlier this week imposed a US$5,000 "weed bond" on Malik and fellow band member Louis Tomlinson, with the money to be forfeited if either of them was caught using or promoting illegal drugs while in the country.
A video that circulated online last year appeared to show Malik and Tomlinson smoking cannabis and joking about drug use.
