Zayn Malik offered some rare insight on his relationship with ex-girlfriend Gigi Hadid — and what went wrong between them.
“I will always love Gigi, because she’s the reason my child is on this Earth, and I have the utmost respect for her,” Malik, 33, said during a new interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, released on Wednesday, February 11. “I will always love her. I don’t know if I was ever in love with her.”
Malik’s clarification comes years after he revealed in a May 2024 appearance on The Zach Sang Show that he had “never” been in love, causing fans to wonder if he was referring to Hadid.
“I have so much respect for this woman, and I do love her crazy amount. But I don’t think I was in love with her at that point,” Malik continued on Wednesday. “Otherwise, I would have been a better version of myself.”
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Malik and Hadid, 30, were in an on-again, off-again relationship from 2015 to 2021. They welcomed daughter Khai in September 2020.
“My understanding of love is always developing. At that moment in time, I might have thought it was love,” he told “Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper. “As I’ve got older, I realized maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was lust, maybe it was this, maybe it was that. I don’t feel like it was love.”
Malik also hinted at his coparenting relationship with his ex, explaining that they have different feelings about certain aspects of Khai’s life.
“I’m raising her in an environment that isn’t the same as everybody’s,” Malik said. “Her dad is a pop star, her mom is a model, and certain things that she does in life might not always reflect what other people’s understanding of reality is.”
For example, Malik said Hadid “gave me s***” after he gave Khai a massive payout for losing a tooth.
“I think I gave her a bit too much money from the tooth fairy,” he admitted, noting she got nearly $700 when she lost her first tooth. “I’m going to keep that one and frame it.”
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Malik added, “At the end of the day, I work my ass off and I should be able to give my kid what I want to give her.”
For her second tooth, Malik will likely only give Khai $5. “Tooth fairy’s gone broke now,” he joked.
Malik continued to justify the elaborate gift, noting that Khai is his “first kid.” He joked, “Give me a break, somebody, please,” before laughing.
“People, in general, obviously look at it a certain type of way,” he continued. “At the end of the day, I was lucky if I got anything for my teeth. I’ve worked really hard for everything I’ve earned, so I don’t feel like I should have to answer for [those] things.”
Malik shared that as a dad, he wants Khai to experience things that he was never able to.
“I overcompensate a little bit too much, sometimes, for that,” he said, “For sure. I’ll hold my hands up.”
