A decade ago, Louis Tomlinson understood that the odds were against him.
One Direction, the boy band juggernaut of which Tomlinson was one-fifth, had just performed for the final time together in late 2015, capping a mega-selling run that included five albums, 13 top 40 hits and over 100 stadium shows. As the group went on hiatus and its members one-by-one went solo, Tomlinson looked around at his bandmates — Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Liam Payne, as well as Zayn Malik, who had abruptly departed the group in March 2015 — and saw, even in a crowded pop landscape, potential for their individual successes. What he didn’t see was room for his own.
“There might be one or two people from a band that prosper, but history says there’s not normally more than two,” Tomlinson says today in his light South Yorkshire lilt, straightening up his chair. He’s wearing track pants, a relaxed gray button-down, a loose tee that reveals a lower neck tattoo and a disarming grin as he sits up in his chair during a mid-November conversation in Los Angeles. “I always knew Harry was going to go on to do what he’s done — I’m sure he’s superseded his own expectations in the way that he’s taken over the world, but we knew he’s got everything it takes to be a great artist,” he continues. “And Niall, I had a good feeling about too — he’s Irish, he’s lovely, everyone loves him.”
Read Louis Tomlinson’s full Billboard cover story interview here.
