Liam Payne Shouts Out One Direction as ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ Nears 1 Billion Streams: ‘Miss You Boys’

It’s been 12 years since One Direction burst onto the scene with their massive global hit, “What Makes You Beautiful,” and on Wednesday (Aug. 2), Liam Payne celebrated a new milestone for the song.

“Wow I just got told we’re about to make a billion streams on wmyb,” the 29-year-old singer wrote alongside a throwback photo of himself posing with former bandmates Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson. “Never in the making of this song so early in our career did I think I would be looking at those numbers what an achievement boys!”

He continued, “I’m so lucky not only to share this with you but also this amazing fanbase everyday I’m learning about myself and what was all of this for but now when I listen back and think of the power we all had including you as a fanbase I’m so happy that for 5 years we made such a great soundtrack to life for myself and everyone who got to listen sharing laughter pain and everything in between miss you boys. Lots of love.”

See Payne’s post here.

Last month, Payne reflected on one of his bigger career controversies, in which he bashed his former bandmates and controversially claimed on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast that he was the inspiration behind Simon Cowell’s decision to create One Direction.

In an eight-minute YouTube video posted on July 8, the singer revealed that the subsequent backlash from the interview was one of the incidents that ultimately encouraged him to enter a sobriety treatment program for 100 days. “My own frustrations with my own career and where I kind of landed, I took shots at everybody else which is wrong. Obviously, I want to apologize for that, in the first instance, because that’s definitely not me,” he shared in the clip. “One of the biggest remarks I made was about the One Direction thing … and a lot of self-protection, I suppose, in that moment, more than anything. The rest of the boys really stuck by me when I needed them most, they kinda came to the rescue. Even Zayn, as well, which is why I did send him a little thank you online. It came across really big-headed didn’t it?”

Moving forward, the “Strip That Down” singer said he’s focusing on his sobriety as he continues to make social media content for the rest of the year. He’s also set to head out on a headlining tour later in the year.