One Direction's Zayn Malik Briefly Quit Twitter Over Terrorist Taunts

One Direction member Zayn Malik temporarily quit Twitter last month after he was falsely accused of supporting terrorism.

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The pop star deleted his account on Aug. 21 after receiving abuse from some of his followers, although he reactivated his page on the microblogging site two days later.

Malik has now opened up about his decision to quite Twitter, admitting that taunts about his Muslim faith upset him.

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He tells Britain's Fabulous magazine, "You can say whatever you want about me; I'm not really bothered. But when it starts to upset people I care about or I hear about it from my mum, then that's a problem. Nasty things (were said) like I'm a terrorist, and this and that. How can you justify that? How can you call me that and get away with it?"

He continued, "My little cousin put up a family picture at Eid because she got a photo with Perrie [British singer Perrie Edwards] and she was so happy about it. But then everybody just gave it to me double-barrel. We live in 2012 and I thought we'd moved forward. If that was said to me on the street or if someone said it to me to my face or whatever, then something could be done about it."

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