The singer gets candid about fatherhood on the 'Call Her Daddy' podcast.
Zayn Malik is speaking out in a rare public interview, addressing his co-parenting experience with Gigi Hadid and the bombshell 2021 allegations of an altercation involving her mother, Yolanda Hadid.
In a new interview on Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast, Zayn is asked how it has been co-parenting with his model ex. Together, the former couple shares 2-year-old daughter, Khai.
"Co-parenting is good," he responds. "We have a really good relationship for Khai. She's the, you know, the main importance."
Zayn, 30, notes that he and Gigi, 28, have a 50/50 custody arrangement and that during his time with his daughter, he chooses not to work.
"I have her 50 percent of the time, so that time I have with her is so important because I feel like she's growing up so fast," he shares. "So when I'm with her, I don't work at all. I just spend a full day with her doing the things like painting, playdough, this, that. Go to the park, go to the theme park, go to the zoo. We just have fun."
The former One Direction member gushes that fatherhood has allowed him to tap back into his own inner child.
"I feel like I've rekindled my own childhood through her," he shares. "I feel like we get to a certain point in adult life where everything is kind of vague and gray and boring, and she's brought that color back for me, for sure."
His favorite passion to share with Khai, he says, is music.
"She shows a lot of signs of, like, musical intelligence already," he raves. "I just love, like, playing instruments with her and singing with her. Like, I'll sing and she sings along and she can do, like, good harmonies and stuff already and she's only two and a half, and she harmonizes with me and, like, finishes notes. She can hold them a long time."
Zayn adds that the toddler can "hit these high notes, like falsetto" and "she remembers full lyrics to songs, as well."
Their favorite tunes to cover? Disney hits, including "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story.
"I'm super full on, hands on with my child every chance I can be," he later says of his parenting. "If I could get 60 percent [custody], I would have it."
Zayn and Gigi's custody arrangement is notable, Alex says, clarifying that there are no visitation or supervision restrictions in the wake of an alleged 2021 incident in which Zayn was accused of shoving Gigi's mother amid a verbal altercation, according to court docs filed at the time.
Zayn said at the time, in a statement to ET, "I adamantly deny striking Yolanda Hadid and for the sake of my daughter I decline to give any further details and I hope that Yolanda will reconsider her false allegations and move towards healing these family issues in private."
He pleaded no contest to four counts of harassment and was placed on 90 days of probation for each count, totaling 360 days. He was also ordered to complete an anger management class and a domestic violence program.
A source told ET that Zayn and Gigi had called it quits amid the allegations.
Now, Zayn reflects on the public disagreement in his new interview.
"I don't tend to get involved when people say things online, whether it's got something to do with me or whether it doesn't. Because for me, my most valuable thing that I have in life is time, and that takes so much time," he says. "In in in a toxic environment to, like, explain yourself to people and justify this. And so I just kind of keep to myself."
He continues, "I knew what the situation was, I knew what happened and the people involved knew what happened, too. And that's all I really cared about. If anybody, you know, of a sane mind would look at the situation, I believe that you could respect that."
"I just didn't want to bring attention to anything, you know?" he adds. "I just wasn't trying to get into a negative back and forth with her. Any sort of narrative online where my daughter was going to look back and read that and be able to read into it and it would just be something that was -- there was no point. I believe I dealt with it in in the best way, in like an amicable, respectful way and that's all that needs to be said. Yeah, just I feel like it's a lot of negativity."
Zayn doubles down on keeping "family issues" out of the spotlight.
"If something happens in the family, like I'd rather keep that between the family, you know," he says. "You don't need a whole audience of people and opinions, because it's hard enough to manage between two."
The former couple has appeared to be keeping things amicable while co-parenting Khai. Gigi wished Zayn a Happy Father's Day on social media in June 2022, sweetly referring to him as "Khai's baba," and tagged him on Instagram while celebrating their daughter's second birthday the following September. Both parties also appear to have moved on romantically, with Gigi recently linked to Leonardo DiCaprio while Zayn was spotted kissing Selena Gomez.
Now, he's gearing up to release new solo music -- including the summer-ready single, "Love Like This."
"It's a good vibe," he says. "It just feels like summer."
No word yet on exactly when fans can expect his next full-length, but Zayn promises to deliver a "different sound" from his previous work.
"I'm doing a record I don't think people are really going to expect," he teases. "It's got some more narrative going on, like, real-life experiences and stuff. So, yeah, my daughter's mentioned in there a couple of times."
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