At approximately 9:30 a.m. PST today, the world stopped turning.
Zayn Malik announced he was leaving One Direction, and instantly the laws of gravity no longer applied to earthlings. Life as we know it was shattered, and Directioners everywhere began to feel the effects to their very core. First came devastation. Then quickly came anger. And not anger at Malik for leaving, but anger at his fiancée Perrie Edwards.
It would appear that 1D fans are dead set on painting Edwards as the modern day Yoko Ono. In case you've been living under a boy band-free rock, here's a quick catch-up on the situation.
Zayn and Perrie, who is a singer in the British girl group Little Mix, have been engaged since August 2013. Last week cheating rumors ran rampant after pictures surfaced of Zayn looking mighty cozy with a woman who is definitely not Perrie. The 1D singer slammed the "jealous f--ks" who started the rumors and claimed that he was as in love with his future wife as ever.
Then, in what could have been simply unfortunate timing, Zayn pulled out of several One Direction concerts citing stress. Cut to today, and he's out of the band entirely. Now, without actually condoning all the Perrie hate that's swirling around, it is possible to see why a devoted Directioner could be led to believe that Zayn left the band to work on his relationship with Perrie—but, many fans are taking that sentiment a bit too far. These are just a few of the (literally thousands) of tweets out there.
We could go on and on, but it's making us too bummed out. This might get us a few Twitter haters out there, but we're going to have to go on record and say this: Don't blame the girlfriend! Malik has had a well-documented problem with fame, and we're pretty sure those problems would still be there regardless of whether or not he was single. Plus, as long as the band is still together, this is no Yoko Ono situation.
Luckily for Perrie (and humanity), there is a faction of fans who are coming to her defense.
As you can see, emotions are really running high in both directions. We're not sure how this is all going to shake out, but to quote the omniscient Justin Bobby, "Truth and time tells all."
And in the meantime, maybe stay off Twitter for the meantime.