One Direction‘s “What Makes You Beautiful” has just reached a milestone of one billion streams. To celebrate, Liam Payne shouted out his former One Direction bandmates in a heartfelt Instagram post. In his post, Payne shared a vintage photo of all the One Direction bandmates posing together. One Direction was made up of Payne, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, and Harry Styles.
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“Wow I just got told we’re about to make a billion streams on wmyb! Never in the making of this song so early in our career did I think I would be looking at those numbers what an achievement boys!” the post’s caption reads.
“I’m so lucky not only to share this with you but also this amazing fanbase everyday I’m learning about myself and what was all of this for but now when I listen back and think of the power we all had including you as a fanbase I’m so happy that for 5 years we made such a great soundtrack to life for myself and everyone who got to listen sharing laughter pain and everything in between miss you boys,” the caption continues. “Lots of love.”
Payne has been in the media frequently as of late, after making a YouTube video apologizing for his behavior prior to getting sober. “My own frustrations with my own career and where I kind of landed, I took shots at everybody else which is wrong. Obviously, I want to apologize for that, in the first instance, because that’s definitely not me,” Payne said in the video posted on July 8.
“One of the biggest remarks I made was about the One Direction thing … and a lot of self-protection, I suppose, in that moment, more than anything,” Payne added at the time. “The rest of the boys really stuck by me when I needed them most, they kinda came to the rescue. Even Zayn, as well, which is why I did send him a little thank you online. It came across really big-headed didn’t it?”
As the video continued, Payne revealed that he found himself becoming a stranger to himself before getting sober. “I just kind of feel like I’ve got more of a grip on life and everything that was getting away from me, I just feel like I’ve got more of a handle on it,” Payne stated.
“I just needed to take a little bit of time out for myself actually because I kind of became somebody who I didn’t really recognize anymore,” he continued. “And I’m sure you guys didn’t either. I was in bad shape up until that point and I was really happy to kind of put a stopper to life and work.” Payne is currently planning a headlining tour for later this year.
Photo by Dave Benett/Getty Images for evian