Simon Cowell talks One Direction hiatus

Simon Cowell has broken his silence on One Direction’s impending hiatus.

Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson announced earlier this week that One Direction will likely take a “well-earned break” from working together following the release of their upcoming fifth album.

Speaking at the launch of The X Factor, the groups boss spoke about the group’s future.

“I’ve known for months that they wanted to take a break,” he explained. “They haven’t announced an official break-up because I don’t think they’re quite sure what they want to do yet, other than have some time off.

“After five years – I know what their schedule was like – it was gruelling. They would have burned themselves out.

“We’ve never been in a situation where we say, ‘We think you should do this’ or ‘We think you should do that’. I would say, ‘Tell me what you want to do and we’ll support you either way’.”

Cowell also acknowledged that no definite timeline is in place for One Direction to eventually re-form.

“I don’t know yet what they’re going to do,” he explained. “They got so successful so quick and they’ve got so many great songs now that they could be doing this for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years.

“So I don’t think you have almost like a master plan, other than knowing that any time they came back together, I think the fans would still support them. I think people would still go to their concerts. It’s a high class problem.”