Members of boy band One Direction, Niall Horan (L-R), Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Harry Styles, attend the Royal Variety Performance in support of the Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Fund, at the Palladium Theatre in London Novembe
Members of boy band One Direction, Niall Horan (L-R), Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Harry Styles, attend the Royal Variety Performance in support of the Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Fund, at the Palladium Theatre in London November 13, 2014. Reuters/Yui Mok/Pool

Zayn Malik was not able to join the rest of his One Direction band members on the Asian leg of their world tour due to stress. A new report claims that Zayn, more than anyone on the band, is struggling and exhausted with the constant spotlight and scrutiny that they are getting.

Zayn has it with One Direction’s fame. With fame comes intense scrutiny and craziness and Zayn is said to be buckling under pressure. A source told People magazine that Zayn is exhausted and needs a break from it all. “Out of every one of the boys, he’s the one who struggles dealing with being in the spotlight the most. He can’t cope with the level of scrutiny he gets put under,” the source explained.

The 22-year old is said to be always the one who cannot handle the chaos that comes with fame not because he is shy, but because he was not as confident as his band mates Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, and Liam Payne. The source added that even though Zayn is fine interacting with people his own age and other boys, it is as if he personally does not believe he is at his current state — famous and fawned over.

According to the source, Zayn’s aversion to fame started the moment he “got into the X Factor machine.” The source said he was happy to just hide behind the other boys. During interviews, Zayn is reportedly more comfortable with Liam doing the answering and talking and he would rarely speak up during group interviews.

For the past week, Zayn faced intense scrutiny when rumours broke out that he cheated on his fiancee, Perrie Edwards, a singer from the band Little Mix with a British girl, Lauren Richardson. The two have been snapped together looking cozy in Thailand. Zayn immediately took to Twitter to defend himself, saying he loves his girlfriend and that there are a lot of jealous people out to break his relationship. There are now speculations that the Zayn and Perrie went off to a private vacation to sort things out.

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