Ever since One Direction went on an indefinite hiatus in 2016, fans online have been theorizing about when and if they’ll ever get back together. But as each member began to find solo success, the odds of a reunion started to feel even slimmer. Still, the fandom hasn’t lost all hope, and who better to comment on the likelihood of a 1D reunion than Simon Cowell, the man responsible for putting them together on The X Factor in 2010?
“My gut feeling is yes,” Cowell said when asked about the possibility of a reunion on 96-107 FM’s Heart Breakfast. “I mean, they’re all doing great solo-wise at the moment, but they had a lot of hits. You know, they could do tour after tour after tour. You know, you could sell out a One Direction gig — a stadium tour — in about twenty seconds.”
But Cowell didn’t stop there. The America’s Got Talent judge even gave us a timeline, guessing that the band would likely hit the road again together “within five years.” Before you get too excited, though, you should know that Cowell’s statement is “only a guess,” and that nothing has been announced or officially decided on. Still, we’d be lying if we said it wasn’t exciting to think about.
Cowell isn’t the only one to have uttered the words “reunion” and “One Direction” in the same sentence recently. In September, Liam Payne told Sirius XM Hits 1’s “The Morning Mash Up” that he thinks the band is “ready to go whenever.” Louis Tomlinson shared similar sentiments, explaining to Metro‘s Guilty Pleasures column that he “wasn’t really ready for the band to go on a break.” “As far as I am concerned, I am happy doing what I am doing,” he said. “But the day that [a reunion] does happen, and everyone is ready to do it, I am ready.”
Niall Horan doesn’t seem opposed to the idea of a One Direction reunion, either, telling Metro that he doesn’t think “any of us would need major, major convincing.” “We are all clearly enjoying what we are doing at the moment,” he said. “I think when someone is ready they pick up the phone. Or I make that phone call … I’ll be ready to go and I’m sure everyone else will too.”
Last, but certainly not least, Harry Styles is also not ruling out the possibility of putting an end to their hiatus once and for all. “I don’t think I’d ever say I’d never do it again, because I don’t feel that way,” the “Lights Up” crooner told Rolling Stone this past August. “If there’s a time when we all really want to do it, that’s the only time for us to do it,” he said. “because I don’t think it should be about anything else other than the fact that we’re all like, ‘Hey, this was really fun. We should do this again.'”
Well, what do you say? Should we put five years on the clock?
