One Direction star Harry Styles is reportedly furious that his band-mates Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik have risked the future of the boyband with a leaked video showing them apparently smoking a joint.
In footage obtained by the Daily Mail, 22-year-old Tomlinson and 21-year-old Malik make several references to marijuana as they smoke a roll-up cigarette in a car in Peru.
The band's three other members – Styles, Niall Horan and Liam Payne – are thought to have been in a separate car at the time.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The video has prompted some fans to rip up or burn their 1D concert tickets, while drug charities and parent groups have turned on the stars for failing to take "real responsibility as role models" to their millions of young fans. A spokesman for the band has said the "matter is in the hands of our lawyers".
The Mail claims the boyband's journey has headed in a "distinctly downward direction" over the last four years. While possession of a small amount of cannabis is not illegal in Peru, the newspaper warns that they could face a ban from the US just weeks before they are set to tour the country on a sell-out nationwide tour.
But not everyone has such a bleak outlook for One Direction's future. In The Guardian, Dave Simpson says: "There may be trouble ahead, not least from parents, but it will clearly take more than a whiff of scandal to blunt 1D's appeal." The world's biggest-selling boy band are the "glaring exception" to the theory that pop music doesn't mean as much to young people as it used to, he says.
Reporting from the band's gig in Sunderland last night, Simpson notes that the boys generated such hysteria among the crowd of 52,000 that even the on-stage technician received "a welcome like Beatlemania".
Meanwhile, Tony Parsons says "squeaky" boys Malik and Tomlinson are victims of a digital age. Neither are likely to go the way of Kurt Cobain or Jimi Hendrix, he says in The Sun. "I would cheerfully predict that both of them would put their spliffs aside before they reach 25 and pick up an e-cigarette... What's different these days is that every youthful idiocy is filmed and shared with the world. You can't get away with anything these days."
The Independent notes that for fellow stars, such as Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, publicly smoking marijuana has become a "rite of passage" when seeking to outgrow their "tween" audience.
"Their clean-cut image may have gone up in smoke," it says. "But One Direction's credibility will scale new heights."
-
How is Chili's saving casual dining? Could others follow?Today's Big Question Value and TikTok virality bring in the diners
-
NASA is abandoning the climateThe Explainer Climate missions could be going dark
-
Every MCU movie since 'Avengers: Endgame,' rankedThe Week Recommends How did the recent 'Fantastic Four: First Steps' stack up?
-
'Age of barbarism': are we doing enough to protect young pop stars?In the Spotlight Some argue that Liam Payne's death should lead to a ban on young pop stars
-
'Heartbreak' as One Direction star Liam Payne dies aged 31Speed Read Singer fell from third floor of hotel in Argentina
-
Why K-pop stars keep relationships hiddenUnder The Radar South Korea's £8bn music industry imposes strict rules on its biggest stars
-
12 concert tours to see this winterThe Week Recommends Olivia Rodrigo, Bad Bunny and more artists are headed on the road
-
The ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ controversyUnder the Radar ‘Spitcident’ is latest in a long list of dramas that have surrounded the film
-
Dunkirk: New trailer is out - but where is Harry Styles?The Week Recommends One Direction star missing in action from first glimpse of Christopher Nolan's nail-biting war drama
-
One Direction split: how serious is the angst?In Depth The 'conscious ungrouping' of 1D causes real suffering for fans, but it's all part of the life cycle
-
Why JLS should be thanked for pulling the plugIn Depth Fans are 'devastated' by boy band's decision to quit, but the nation owes them a debt of gratitude
