Niall Horan found fame at just 16-years-old, after competing on The X Factor with pop group One Direction.
After appearing on the show, the band experienced a meteoric rise to fame, achieving global success with their debut album.
But this came at a price, with Niall confessing he “became a bit of a recluse” not knowing how to handle massive mobs of fans. Sharing a particularly harrowing incident, when visiting a shopping centre.
Speaking on the Unfiltered podcast, the Mullingar man detailed: “There were periods where you’d go out and you wouldn’t get five yards outside the door.”
“I remember one time I stupidly went to Westfield (shopping centre), in West London, and honestly, swear to God, I was like, ‘I’m going to die in here. I’m never getting out.’”
“It was the fear of that which kept me in.”
“I probably became a bit of a recluse in 2012, 2013, 2014… It was probably all in my head but I became a recluse because of the thought of going out, when I probably could have,” he continued.
Admitting that his fast rise to fame at such a young age made it hard.
Explaining: “There is a side of it where you’ve just come from zero to hero, the shock of it, it’s a shock to the system and you’re trying to live a normal life.”
Luckily Niall has found a balance and now lives a relatively normal live in London.
“Now I live the most normal life I could possibly live, I can go to the shops and buy my own dinner and just general stuff.”
“There was a period where if someone said, ‘Do you want to grab a coffee?’ or ‘Do you want to go for lunch?’ I’d have said absolutely not,” the 29-year-old confessed.
Of course, Niall will be back in the limelight again, after releasing his new album, The Show and preparing for his upcoming tour.
