Last week, Zayn Malik (of former One Direction fame and current solo artist) released a tell-all book about his life the past few years. The book titled after his name, Zayn, explores more important and pressing topics than anticipated.
While most would expect a book filled with spite, anger and a lot more dislike for Malik’s past work, he focused a lot more on his personal struggles.
Malik talks about his anxiety which he’s previously mentioned and cancelled shows for. He discusses how the anxiety has been crippling for him, especially in regard to his solo endeavors. He talks about how he’s trying to push through it, trying to find ways to work up the ability to perform to larger crowds again. He explains anxiety in a much more relatable manner than most celebrities have. He mentions how it doesn’t make sense, how it is frustrating and how anxiety can impact your daily life with simple tasks.
The more interesting and perhaps shocking topic, is Malik opening up about his eating disorder which he struggled with while in the band. He writes, “When I look back at images of myself from around November 2014, before the final tour, I can see how ill I was.”
He continues to talk about how at that point in his life, the only thing he felt like he could control was what and how much he ate. He explains that he would go a couple days without eating anything at all, and he could see how thin and how physically tolling it was on him.
In regard to his past in One Direction, he speaks highly of his work. He says that he will always be grateful for it and what it’s done for him, revealing pictures of the room he keeps all his One Direction memorabilia and awards in.
Malik’s book touches on other topics such as issues of dealing with being biracial in a white community, how foreign music has inspired him and simply Malik’s personal mentality and daily life. His choice of topics gives the book an honest and genuine feel. Zayn Malik, a mega popstar, talks about how he struggled with an eating disorder and anxiety – with male celebrities, this rarely happens, if ever. His openness brings a whole new awareness to these issues. Men rarely discuss eating disorders and rarely bring themselves to talk about it. Having someone who is such a big star share his story will hopefully allow for this conversation to be something that is no longer so unheard of.