Living his life in the spotlight, Zayn Malik also had to go through a high-profile split from his fiancée Perrie Edwards.
Zayn Malik and Perrie Edwards in 2013
The couple called it quits in late 2015, although the 'Like I Would' hitmaker recently revealed the relationship was "breaking down" much earlier that year.
Writing in his eponymous memoir, he said: "It was March 2015. I had been in a bad place for a while and I didn't see myself getting out of it unless I made a change.
"My relationship with my fiancée, Perrie, was breaking down. To make matters worse, there were so many crazy stories flying around in the newspapers about us, and it felt like such an invasion of privacy, it made me just want to disappear for a while."
Zayn opted to make the move to Los Angeles for a new start after the end of their engagement.
He added: "I decided I needed a change. I wanted to switch things up, gain some new inspiration. This was at a time when a lot of stuff was going on in my personal life. My engagement to Perrie was over. Because of that, and me leaving One Direction, the media in London was tailing me wherever I went. There were photographers parked outside my house all the time, and fans would ring the doorbell in the middle of the night. It all just felt like too much to take. I needed a change of scene. So I ended up in LA."
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