Professional concerns have been overshadowed by persistent speculation surrounding his personal life and a recent, high-profile split with supermodel Gigi Hadid.
But the turbulence of the last month appears to be behind Zayn Malik as he prepares to sail on what one hopes will be calmer waters with his forthcoming second album and its lead single, Let Me.
And the former One Direction star, 25, insists he has moved on from his recent split with Gigi and is fully focussed on promoting his first musical output since 2016 debut Mind of Mine reached number 1 in the UK and US album charts.
‘I think my confidence has grown,’ he told Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw on Thursday morning. ‘The last year and a half I’ve been working on a lot of personal issues.
‘Me leaving the band and I didn’t know what I wanted. I released the album but I wasn’t being prominent as I wanted to be. I’m a lot more confident now and I’m looking forward to the fans hearing it.’
The new sound will be a departure from the conventional R&B that underpinned his last release, hastily recorded following his abrupt departure from One Direction mid-way through the south-east Asian leg of their On The Road Again world tour.
But going solo has not dented the singer's popularity among fans of the manufactured pop group, created by Simon Cowell and Nicole Scherzinger during auditions for The X Factor in 2010, and he remains constantly amazed by their loyalty.
'It’s anything not but humbling,' he said. 'People who don’t know you personally but have a strong connection to it (the music).'
International success, as well as former girlfriend Gigi's New York and Los Angeles based career, inevitably resulted in Zayn following a well-trodden path by relocating to the United States.
But the breezy Californian lifestyle has not alleviated the singer's longing for home-comforts and his old life in West Yorkshire, where he was raised by Pakistani father Yaser and English mother Tricia.
'You can take the boy out of Bradford but you can’t take the Bradford out of the boy,' he explained.
'I miss the food and I miss the atmosphere and the banter. Sarcasm don’t go down too well in the States, but they’re coming around to it.'
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