Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
One Direction has one interview demand: no questions about... anything, basically.
That was the reality faced by DJ Rush from Ottawa's Hot 89.9 show "The Morning Hot Tub" earlier this week, when he was set to interview Zayn Malik, the 19-year-old member of the famous U.K. boy band.
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The show played a recording, uploaded to YouTube on Monday, of One Direction's record company rep listing off the 12 topics Rush could not ask Malik about:
1. What is your celebrity crush?
2. Which of you have girlfriends?
3. Who came up with the name One Direction?
4. Anything "X Factor" related
5. Worst habits about each other
6. Do you fight?
7. Best prank someone pulled on you?
8. Describe each other in one word
9. Funniest fan stories
10. If not in a band, what would you be doing?
11. Preshow rituals
12. No questions about money or religion
So, what's left? Not much, as Rush joked during the interview itself.
"How are you, Zayn? You're a very busy guy today, huh?" Rush began.
"Uh, yeah, kinda busy, yeah," Malik replied.
Then Rush launched into perhaps the shortest interview in radio history.
"OK, well, Zayn, I want to talk to you about... Well, I can't do that... No..." Rush quipped, before concluding, "OK, well, that's about gonna do it, thank you for taking the time for us today and continued success for the future!"
"Thank you, bye," Malik said, barely sounding surprised at all.
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Following the interview, the DJs dissolved into laughter at the record company's expense. And it seems that laughter reverberated across the Internet, because One Direction released the following statement yesterday:
"Regarding the recent story about One Direction 'banning questions' -- this is a complete misunderstanding. One Direction asked if certain recurring questions could be avoided in future interviews as the band were giving the same answers continually. They knew, via feedback, that the fans were requesting a wider range of subject matter in interviews. Questions relating to describing each band member, or referencing 'The X Factor,' are certainly not out of bounds. A suggestion was merely made to try and make interviews more interesting for the fans, which has been misconstrued and misunderstood."
That's not how it sounded to us!