Music mogul Simon Cowell has opened up about the drama that has erupted between Naughty Boy and One Direction, which happened following Zayn Malik's shock departure from the world-famous boyband.

The tension was caused when producer Naughty Boy shared a short video of text saying that 'Zaughty' will rise now that he's no longer a member of the group, and today (April 8) Cowell told reporters at the Britain's Got Talent press launch that it was a silly 'little spat' that came at a bad time:

"You can't work together for this long if you're not friends. [That was just] a little spat that happened, people were getting a bit emotional. The only thing that matters is that the boys are happy, everyone is in a different place at the moment."

Naughty Boy recently spoke to Heat magazine about the drama and suggested that Louis Tomlinson had stirred things up with the angry tweet he sent publicly: "There seems to be some needless provoking going on. [Louis] was deliberately adding to the provoking. I don't think that's fair. Especially on Zayn, that's not fair. Right now, there needs to be calm. He could have said that to me privately. Doing it openly is another act of provocation that's not needed."

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Listen to Malik's solo demo here: