One Direction's Zayn Malik, 20, reportedly had a nasty bout of food poisoning and/or hangover sickness during One Direction's first visit to Japan. Malik abruptly left a One Direction press conference in Tokyo on January 18, 2013, to get sick in private, while his One Direction band mates (18-year-old Harry Styles, 19-year-old Liam Payne, 21-year-old Louis Tomlinson and 19-year-old Niall Horan) continued the press conference without Malik.
An eyewitness told the Daily Mirror: "He [Malik] had been rubbing his tummy throughout proceedings, then suddenly, he took a deep breath and dashed off stage because he felt so unwell. The others were all looking around concerned for a while, then Niall checked with management to see if he was OK. They moved up to take his seat away so it didn’t look too weird, while Zayn went back to his hotel to recover.”
Another source hinted to The Sun that Malik could have been sick from being hung over after a drunken night out with his band mates: "The boys had a bit of a late one on their first night. It’s their first time in Japan and they were excited to be somewhere new. They made the most of the local drinks to get over their jet lag but were suffering during the press conference.” (In Japan, the minimum legal age to drink alcohol is 20 years old.)
As previously reported, the members of "X Factor" U.K. boy band One Direction spent their first night in Tokyo hanging out with The Vaccines and doing karaoke with them.
As for the press conference, much of the time was taken up by One Direction posing for photos and Japanese/English translations. And as is the case with almost all One Direction press conferences, the reporters asked boring, predictable and/or dumb questions that have been repeatedly asked in other One Direction interviews. In other words, there was nothing new revealed in the press conference.
(Click here to watch One Direction's Tokyo press conference.)
Malik recovered from being sick in time to join the rest of One Direction later that day for an interview and performance of "Live While We're Young" on the Japanese TV show "Music Station," where Malik said that he bought a dancing robot while in Japan. Styles said his tourist souvenir was a Tokyo T-shirt.
Members of the group also mentioned where they ate since they've been in Japan. Styles said they went to a traditional Japanese restaurant and had sashimi there. "I hate raw fish," he added, as Malik smirked at an apparent inside joke. Payne said that the guys in One Direction also "went to a noodle bar, but we couldn't understand the menu, so we didn't know what to order."
(Click here to watch One Direction on "Music Station.")
January 20, 2013 update: According to The Sun, the members of One Direction thought that their Tokyo press conference was embarrassing because they didn't know enough of the Japanese language, so from now on, they're going to try to learn more of the native language when they're in a country where English is not the primary language.
An unnamed source told The Sun: “The press conference in Japan got embarrassing because the boys’ culture shock was so obvious. Over the weekend they vowed to learn at least 20 of the most common words in the languages of the countries they’re visiting before they land there. They think it will avoid embarrassing moments and build up a bond with fans. They’re just going to use YouTube tutorials to brush up on their language skills and think that’s going to be enough.”
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