Zayn Malik
Zayn Malik's album is inspired by his split with Perrie Edwards Reuters

Zayn Malik has revealed the real reason he left One Direction. The 23-year-old singer quit the boy band in March 2015.

In a new interview with Glamour magazine, Malik talked about the influence of an extraterrestrial force in his life. He said: "An alien spoke to me in a dream.... "

This comes after Gigi Hadid's boyfriend revealed to Dazed magazine that he quit the band as he was not comfortable being in a group. He said: "I just knew it was my time. I knew I wanted to do something different and start expressing the way I felt about certain things."

He added: "I have always liked [RCA], just because they signed f**king Elvis and a lot of people I look up to. I went and met with Pete (Edge, CEO) and we had a couple conversations and I really liked his vibe. They seemed to treat me as though I was an artist for the first time, which felt really cool. And they respected the music. I had written a lot of it before I went with RCA and they liked where I was going and wanted to give me freedom so I was like, 'Cool.'"