The moment has come, Directioners: the boys have officially taken a break.
One Direction‘s Niall Horan tweeted Monday what sounds like an unequivocal lights out on the boy band’s current run, which began five years ago and recently culminated in the release of their last album, Made in the A.M. Since their fifth album, the quartet delivered a few year-end performances, including Jingle Ball L.A. on Dec. 4, which was touted as the group’s last U.S. performance before a hiatus of an as-yet-undetermined length.
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“Looking forward to chilling for a while now,” Horan tweeted.
Can’t thank you enough to be honest … Don’t worry , we’ll be back .. Looking forward to chilling for a while now
— Niall Horan (@NiallOfficial) December 14, 2015
Similar messages have been filtering out from the rest of the band in the past day or so, graciously thanking fans with the clear implication that this is good-bye…for now. Harry Styles also had this to say over the weekend:
To you, you have changed our lives and no words will ever be good enough to thank you for what we have done together.
— Harry Styles. (@Harry_Styles) December 14, 2015
And then there was this vague but optimistic promise for eventual return from Louis Tomlinson:
I hope you realise what we have all done together really is incredible. You guys have made us what we are today! We’ll be back soon enough!
— Louis Tomlinson (@Louis_Tomlinson) December 14, 2015
“Soon enough” has so far been estimated at anywhere from 18 months to two years – an amount of time fans would surely say is anything ?but soon.
Update: Liam Payne, for his part, went with a joke.
Off to the job centre … Hope it all works out
— Liam (@Real_Liam_Payne) December 14, 2015