There was a time when scandal-hit stars would flock to the couch of a celebrated TV host for their tell-all interview (we’re looking at you Hugh Grant), however Zayn Malik’s decision to pick a podcast for his first interview in six years shows just how popular the medium has got.
The former One Direction singer sat down with the Call Her Daddy podcast, which has nearly 2 million followers on Instagram, to finally address allegations that he pushed his mother-in-law Yolanda Hadid into a chest of drawers.
In October 2021, Malik pleaded no contest to four criminal harassment charges in a dispute against his former girlfriend supermodel Gigi Haddid, and her mother Yolanda Hadid (Malik and Gigi Hadid share a child with each other).
Court documents reviewed by TMZ at the time alleged that Malik called Yolanda a “‘f***ing Dutch slut,’ [and] ordered her to ‘stay away from [my] f***ing daughter’”.
They also said he allegedly “shoved her [Yolanda] into a dresser causing mental anguish and physical pain.”
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Speaking publicly for the first time since the claims, Malik told podcast host Cooper “For me like… I don’t tend to get involved when people say things online whether it’s got something to do with me or whether it doesn’t, because, for me the most valuable thing that I have in life is time and that takes so much time, in a toxic environment to explain yourself to people and justify this. So I just kind of kept to myself, I knew what the situation was, I knew what happened and the people involved knew what happened too, and that’s all I really cared about”
“I just didn’t want to bring attention to anything, I just wasn’t trying to get into a negative back and forth with her, any sort of narrative online where my daughter was gonna look back and read that…If something happens in the family I’d rather keep that between the family, you don’t need a whole audience of people.”
Malik said he decided to do the podcast for the sake of his daughter.
“The main thing in my mind is like trying to be a good example to her.”
“Like I feel like I’ve like had to step up, you know, as, as as a man or just, you know, as a person and be this example to her that doesn’t succumb to these feelings. That’s why I’m even doing this interview. You know, like I I used to get a lot of anxiety around like having a conversation like this just in this kind of environment. And I want her to be able to look at me and be like, ‘Yo, my dad’s doing this, you know, he’s the man. He’s cool.”
The popularity of podcasts has jumped rapidly in recent years. Globally, the number of podcast listeners jumped grew by over 40 million between 2022 and 2023.
Around 18 million Australians, or 81 per cent percent of the total population aged 12-plus, listen to digital audio monthly, up from 78 per cent in 2022.
Australian podcast listening has jumped to 43 per cent monthly up from 40 per cent in 2022 and ahead of the U.S. for the first time. Weekly podcast listener numbers rose seven percent to 33 per cent from 26 per cent year on year.
