Louis Tomlinson has reflected on watching BTS break One Direction‘s chart records.
In a recent Billboard cover story, Tomlinson said that despite not paying “loads of attention to” the success of other boy bands post-1D, the meteoric rise of the K-pop group was impossible to ignore.
“There was a time when BTS was on the way up, and I felt like, every time I logged into Twitter, they’d just taken one of our records for something – some fastest-selling thing, and they’d take it away!” he joked.
“It was just a bit of a shame!” he continued. “But I don’t begrudge them that – that’s the nature of the music industry, it keeps moving,”
While looking back to the rise of his former band, he said there hasn’t been anything similar, really,” to the pop culture phenomenon One Direction became in their 2010’s peak. “I’m sure people are trying,” he reasoned, “but I think what was really interesting about One Direction [was] pretty much every boy band that had come before us would fit into a quite specific mould.
“There was a way of doing boy bands back in the day, dressing in the same outfits, dancing. We broke free from that.”
His comments come ahead of the release of his next solo album, ‘How Did I Get Here?‘ which is due out on Friday (January 23) – visit here to pre-order. The new record follows his sophomore solo record, ‘Faith In The Future’, which arrived in 2022, and comes accompanied by a huge 2026 world arena tour.
This spring will see him play across the UK and Europe, with dates kicking off in Hamburg on March 23. From there he will play in Helsinki, Vienna, Prague and more, before heading over to the UK and Ireland for seven shows.
UK dates include stops in Manchester, Glasgow, and Brighton, and wrap up on May 3 with a closing night at The O2 in London – visit here for tickets to UK dates and here for international tickets.
Louis Tomlinson’s 2026 UK and European tour dates are:
MARCH
23 – Barclays Arena, Hamburg
25 – Unity Arena, Oslo
27 -Veikkaus Arena, Helsinki
29 – Avicii Arena, Stockholm
30 – KB Hallen, Copenhagen
APRIL
1 – Uber Arena, Berlin
2 – Lanxess Arena, Cologne
4 – Arena Gliwice, Gliwice
5 – O2 Arena, Prague
6 – Marx Halle, Vienna
9 – Unipol Arena, Bologna
10 – Unipol Forum, Milan
12 – Palau Sant Jordi, Barcleona
13 – Movistar Arena, Madrid
15 – LDLC Arena, Lyon
17 – Olympiahalle, Munich
19 – Lotto Arena, Antwerp
20 – Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam
21 – Accor Arena, Paris
24 – Co-op Live, Manchester
25 – Utilita Arena, Birmingham
27 – OVO Hydro, Glasgow
28 – First Direct Arena, Leeds
30 – 3Arena, Dublin
MAY
2 – The Brighton Centre, Brighton
3 – The O2, London
Speaking to NME in 2022, the singer said he was “definitely” more comfortable with who he was as an artist compared to when he first went solo.
“That has been a process and I think it’ll be an ever-evolving process as well,” he told us. “But I definitely feel really comfortable about just following my heart musically and seeing where it gets me.”
News of the tour and new album also follows a deeply difficult period for the singer and his former bandmates, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles and Niall Horan, after the tragic death of Liam Payne in 2024.
All members paid tribute to Payne in a moving statement following his death, while each band member also took to their social media accounts to pay their respects.
“Naturally, there is a closeness — it definitely feels closer than it was,” Tomlinson told Billboard of his current dynamic with Styles, Horan and Malik in the aftermath of Payne’s passing. “But I think we’re all so busy, it’s hard to keep that consistency.
“It also depends person to person. Like, Niall — and hopefully he’d say the same about me — we could not exchange a text in a whole year and then go for a beer and literally be chatting nonstop.”
Meanwhile, the upcoming BTS record was recently listed as one of NME‘s most anticipated album releases of 2026. “Expect this comeback to be massive,” the entry read.
In July, the K-pop icons reunited for the first time since 2022, with all seven members having completed their mandatory military service in South Korea. During a special livestream, BTS confirmed rumours that they were preparing to release new music.
They went on hiatus in 2022, so that their members could also “explore some solo projects”, while juggling the aforementioned mandatory military service.