Niall Horan used to feel "sorry" for Justin Bieber.
The 26-year-old pop star feels he’s fortunate that he was able to share the burden of fame with his One Direction bandmates – Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, and Harry Styles – when they first emerged on the music scene, and that meant, unlike Justin, they were able to exist in their own "little bubble".
Asked about his experiences of growing up in the public eye, Niall shared: "To be fair, we had each other around. I don’t think people realise the power of that actually because you see solo stars and people who struggled with things like that and I can relate to some of it.
"I watched Justin Bieber’s new docuseries – I know the guy I know quite well – and how it affected him, people didn’t realise the pressure that he was under and I can relate to that 100 percent."
Niall explained that One Direction – who have been on a hiatus since 2016 – were insulated somewhat from the demands of fame because the pressures were shared among them.
He told Glamour UK magazine: "We were always lucky that we had each other to share the experience with. And I always felt sorry for Justin in that respect.
"I think we were the lucky ones. We all came from simple backgrounds, we had that in common and it helped along the way. When it was all going on around us, we were just in our little bubble chatting about how crazy it is and how we couldn’t believe where we were all the time.
"We never really saw ourselves as these big celebrities. We were just in this little fishbowl having a great time and all the madness was going on around us."
Niall Horan felt ‘sorry’ for Justin Bieber
