The long-awaited and long-rumored One Direction reunion is happening, one of the boy band's members confirmed, noting that he already got in trouble for "revealing a bit of [the group's] plans."
On Sunday afternoon, Liam Payne spoke to DJ Alesso on Instagram Live. The men had planned on using the time to promote their collaborative single "Midnight," but fans quickly turned the conversation to the rumored One Direction reconciliation, which is supposedly happening to mark the 10th anniversary of the group's formation.
"Oh my god dude… there's so many One Direction questions," Alesso said. "But I feel like I don't want to put you on the spot because I know you can't say too much."
Liam noted that he's spoken to fellow 1D member Niall Horan on FaceTime.
"Most of us are in London," he said. "We've been trying to arrange the first group FaceTime with the boys at the moment."
He added, "I can't say too much. Louis [Tomlinson] told me off for revealing a bit of our plans the other day, so you're going to have the group chat telling me off."
Alesso said, "Oooh, wow, the whole world is about explode."
Liam quickly replied, "You can come in and fill in for Zayn [Malik] and join the band."
Liam is the one mostly stoking the reunion fire. Last week he told James Corden, "I'm not allowed to say too much obviously because I'd be giving it away, but we've been speaking a lot more at the moment." He added, "I think that we're all feeling that that 10 year[s] is a very special moment."
He also recently told The Sun, "We've got a 10-year anniversary coming up so we've all been speaking together a lot over the last few weeks which has been really nice. You hear a lot of people's voices and seeing old content and different things that we haven't seen for a long time or never seen before, it's very interesting."
He continued, "There's a number of different things that we are all working on to try and make happen and people are forwarding emails around."
The hints are out there, too. Liam, Niall, Harry Styles and Louis started refollowing Zayn on Twitter recently. Plus, fans also noticed that all five of the band's albums are now available on Apple Music, and the official 1D website has also been reactived for the first time since the band began its hiatus in 2016. Internet sleuths have also noticed that Zayn, who quit the band first, is no longer listed as an "ex-member" of the band on Google .
Harry also hasn't completely shied away from the long-standing rumors.
In a chat with SiriusXM earlier this month, he was asked about doing a Zoom call with his former bandmates.
"I don't know if that's the reunion we had in mind," he said. "I don't know if that would be the way to do it. I'll have a quick whip-round."
Page Six reported that insiders are suggesting the band is eyeing July for a reunion, coronavirus permitting.