When One Direction made their meticulously-PR-planned debut, they followed every rule in the boy band playbook, including making sure each guy had a “thing” (you know—Harry Styles was the “flirty one,” Niall Horan was the “sweet, funny one,” etc.). Zayn Malik was pretty immediately christened the “mysterious bad boy” of the group. Eventually, the guys were allowed to exist as more than two-dimensional, rough elevator pitch ideas for full human beings, and while “mysterious” was spot-on, it also quickly became clear that “romantic” needed to be added to Zayn’s shortlist of adjectives.
From his engagement to Perrie Edwards to his on-again, off-again romance-turned-platonic-coparenting-ship with Gigi Hadid to his rumored new ~thing~ with Selena Gomez, here’s a look back at everyone Zayn has dated since those early 1D days.
GENEVA LANE: 2010
Zayn and Geneva dated briefly back in 2010, when they were both contestants on The X Factor. The romance was short-lived, however, and didn’t seem to end on the *best* terms, with Geneva calling him a “heartbreaker” after their split when he started dating Rebecca Ferguson (also an X Factor alum).
“Zayn’s a heartbreaker,” Geneva told News of the World (via Digital Spy) in 2011. “When I found out he was seeing Rebecca I felt numb. He told me he loved me and promised me the world.
REBECCA FERGUSON: EARLY 2011
Zayn and Rebecca Ferguson dated in 2011 when they were both part of the X Factor tour, which ran from late February through early April that year.
Rebecca later called the short fling her “first mistake” and said their five-year age difference brought a lot of scrutiny to the relationship.
“I was 23, he was 18. Of course, if it was a 23-year-old guy dating an 18-year-old girl, no one would have batted an eyelid, but this way around was a big deal, apparently,” she told The Independent in 2013. “I didn’t realize that. I was just a hippy, free-loving person, but that’s not a good thing to be in this industry. You can’t just follow your heart.”
STEPHANIE DAVIS: LATER IN 2011
After his split from Rebecca Ferguson, Zayn reportedly dated Hollyoaks actress Stephanie Davis for five months, also in 2011. In 2016, she appeared on Celebrity Big Brother and discussed the relationship, claiming she ended up changing her number on him.
“He [wasn’t] happy, even when I was going out with him. I can’t believe he stuck it out for that long,” she explained on the show (per BBC). “I ended it with him because at the time I was oblivious to that world. And then I was out with the girls in town and he was calling me, calling me. I changed my number.”
PERRIE EDWARDS: EARLY 2012-AUGUST 2015
Zayn and Perrie reportedly started dating in early 2012 and announced their engagement about a year and a half later, in August 2013. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be and two years later, by August 2015, Zayn and Perrie had ended their engagement.
In 2016, Perrie claimed that Zayn had actually ended the relationship via text message (FWIW, however, Zayn publicly denied this).
“It was horrible, the worst time in my life,” she wrote in a excerpt from Little Mix’s book, Our World that leaked early. “A four-year relationship, two year engagement ended by a simple text message. Just like that. Even though things in my career were going really well, it was incredibly difficult for me.”
GIGI HADI: NOVEMBER 2015-JANUARY 2019, JANUARY 2020-OCTOBER 2021
Zayn’s longest and most serious relationship by far has been his on-again, off-again romance with Gigi Hadid. They were first linked in late 2015 and dated on and off (mostly on with brief reported off periods) through January 2019. After a year apart, they got back together in January 2020 and just a few months later, in April 2020, news broke that they were expecting their first child together.
Becoming parents only seemed to strengthen their bond, a source told Us Weekly in July 2020 of the then-expectant parents. “Gigi and Zayn are so great for each other and balance each other out,” the source said. “Her pregnancy has brought them even closer together as a couple.”
Zayn and Gigi welcomed their daughter, Khai, in September 2020 and, while they’re still committed to coparenting, they ultimately split again in October 2021 (details about all their relationship ups and downs are right here, if you want them).
SELENA GOMEZ: MARCH 2023-PRESENT
Naturally, headlines were made when Zayn and Selena Gomez went on a date in NYC, casually engaged in some PDA, and proceeded to give TikTok a meltdown.
For the record, sources say Gigi is totally fine with the Zayn x Selena ‘ship and that she “has no problem whatsoever with Zayn dating….As long as he is happy and stable and continues to be a good coparent to [their daughter] Khai, she’s fine with whoever he goes out with.”