Music mogul Simon Cowell has confirmed that Zayn Malik has now left the SyCo roster, but this move is a positive one as it means it will remove any potential tension from building between him and his former bandmates. 

Speaking to The Sun newspaper, Cowell admitted that his own responsibility remains with One Direction and he felt as though Malik would get the attention he deserved by still working under Sony name but with a different label:

"Well, because it was his decision to leave the group and we hadn’t asked him to do it, I felt my main responsibility was to the band. They didn’t ask for it to happen either and I did sign One Direction as a group. But luckily within Sony there are a lot of labels who are really good. I had a feeling there was one particular label who would love to have him and they did."

Cowell went onto add that Malik's move away from the label means that he will be treated as an individual while his former 1D bandmates remain with SyCo and will be prioritised over there: 

“It enables them to treat him as a priority and us to carry on with what we’re doing with the boys. It also means no one has any nerves about whether we’re working harder on them or him."

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Watch Cowell discussing Malik's decision to quit the band here: