Liam Payne has thanked One Direction fans for "all the love and joy" on the 10th anniversary of their formation.
Today (23.07.20) marks a decade since the ‘History’ hitmakers – which also includes Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson, and formerly Zayn Malik until his departure in 2015 – auditioned on ‘The X Factor’ and Liam has admitted he would never have anticipated the chart-topping group would be celebrating the milestone.
The 26-year-old pop star also admitted it’s "amazing" that each member has received so much love and support from Directioners for their respective solo careers.
Speaking to Roman Kemp on ‘Capital Breakfast’, he reflected: "I was thinking about this the other day because I remember in interviews they would be like, ‘where do you see yourselves in 10 years time’, and it definitely was not here.
"I can only say thank you really to all of our amazing fans for putting us into this.
"For all the love and joy for One Direction and all of the love since we’ve all gone solo and done our own thing.
"It’s just amazing.
"And for the record each of us broke for all having a song in the Top 40 in America or something, you just can’t take those moments for granted because they just don’t happen … seeing the love for us is still there.
"Like I say, some people struggle to hold a job for 10 years, so it’s crazy for me, I just feel so thankful to be here."
The ‘Strip That Down’ singer also gave an update on his solo material and teased he has a number of tracks he’s been working on during the coronavirus lockdown which he "really likes".
He said: "I’ve been in and out of the studio for the last couple of months.
"There’s a couple of songs that I really like.
"So I am actually going in to record another one this week so I hopefully not too long."
Liam’s appearance on Capital comes after One Direction finally broken their two-year silence on social media and posted a video soundtracked by ‘History’ containing archived footage of the group over the years.
In their first Twitter post since 2018, the band said: "Tomorrow! You and me got a whole lot of history #10YearsOf1D (sic)"
The group posted the same message on their Instagram account, which has more than 18 million followers.
One Direction have been on a hiatus since 2016.