Call it a break up, call it a conscious unquadrupling, but for One Direction fans, it’s been a rough couple of days. Reacting with the kind of emotional fervour last seen when Clarkson got the boot from Top Gear, the four members of the X-Factor-launched boy band are taking a year off, starting in March next year.
Joey Fatone, the self-identifying ‘fat one’ from the American boyband *N Sync, made for something of an unlikely agony aunt to the boys of One Direction, when an open-letter he seemingly wrote was published online, informing the lads in no uncertain terms that “everything is about to be terrible.”
The letter was posted on the American comedy website Above Average, but was actually penned by the site's staff writer Joanna Bradley.
Fatone as a spokesman for Bosley hair restoration [Spin.com]
In it, writing as the former boyband member Fatone – whose career since *N Sync disbanded has seen him lend his personality to a hair-loss prevention product and become an announcer on the US version of Family Fortunes – Bradley informs the four members that Harry Styles is the only one who's going to have any lasting success in the music business.
"It’s not that you guys aren’t talented, it’s that Harry is so, so much cuter, cooler and more talented than the rest of you," Fatone supposedly writes. "Deep down, you’ve always known that, but you will never truly understand it until you’re in your grimy little condo, sitting in your boxers, sucking a chow mein noodle off your Playstation controller and watching Harry blow it up on SNL."
Bradley's article fooled several news organisations around the world, and was reported on widely. But for the One Direction fans who genuinely thought Fatone was weighing in on the futures of Harry, Niall, Louis, and Liam, the response was as characteristically hostile as the '1D fandom' has ever been:
@1DPaparazzis I'm embarrassed for him. He sounds so bitter lmao
— 1D & Zayn Updates (@1DRockMeUpdates) August 25, 2015
This is disgusting and completely unprofessional just cuz ur band flopped doesn't mean 1D will asshole https://t.co/czrVS4vwrp
— Cris (@CristinaSuciuu) August 25, 2015
I don't even know what the fuck is a joey fatone https://t.co/MSvLRwNMHw
— soph@1 (@pizzasophie50) August 26, 2015
No one knows you @realjoeyfatone so stfu cause you and your comments are irrelevant. ðŸ˜
— frog (@cutietitstyles) August 26, 2015
These things that Joey Fatone said about the boys are kind of really awful. #JoeyFatone #OneDirection
— Carter Please (@jbiebsftgrier) August 26, 2015
You can read the full letter written to the One Direction members here.
