#but when the only megastar i’m really a huge fan of is taylor swift

[silent-partner-412]

the people in the center of the venn diagram that is my interests (popular/pop adjacent music and anime video games) are so few and far between lol i would have such a hard time gaining a following if i were to try and make content on like youtube or something

[recklesstreacherous]

I would like to tell you a wonderful story about my friend and someone I do not know…Taylor Swift.

How do I begin…

My friend, Linda, has had the most terrible history with cancer. She’s a single mother who has tried everything within her arsenal to stay positive, healthy and motivated. So when she found out it was back, with the holidays approaching, she started to reach out to her friends.

She wrote on Facebook:

I helplessly watched her post messages of her condition for months. I read through them trying to find any opportunities of things I could help her with, or just to try to make her feel better. When I saw this post, and read that she wanted a card from Taylor Swift, I thought to myself, there’s no way I can make that happen. Still, you can only ever try, and that is good enough for me.

So I started to try.

To understand exactly what she had gone through, I asked her to write me the details. She replied:

I had a brain tumor removed in May of 2010. An adrenal tumor removed in aug 2010. Diagnosed with neurofibromatosis in 2014. Thyroid biopsy and hysterectomy in 2015. Triple neg breast cancer stage 3. In August 2017 Double mastectomy and DIEP Flap reconstruction after Dec Bilateral Mastectomy with DIEP Flap reconstruction. Then six weeks of radiation In August I had the biopsy. The I went bi-weekly for chemotherapy. My last treatment was Nov 29th. The Bilateral Mastectomy and DIEP Flap reconstruction is where they use my stomach tissue to create new breasts.

I hadn’t known her history before, but to think of one person having to go through all of this tore my heart into two. Life really isn’t fair at times. Okay Linda, I’m going to try my best!She told me her daughter Jolynne, 8, was the biggest Taylor Swift fan and sent me a few adorable photos.

Of course, the first thing I thought of was to ask my wonderful boss, Arianna, if she knew Taylor Swift. She replied that she unfortunately did not know the her, but would love to. I was immediately disheartened thinking, well of my limited connections, that was the only path that had a glimmer of hope. Still, I had to move onto plan B. I posted a heartfelt ask to my friends on Facebook. Maybe someone knew someone who knew the Megastar. With a stroke of luck, my friend Dwayne Seaton came through. He is a long-time friend, but also Founder of “Sounds of Tomorrow”, a wonderful company that takes at-risk talented youth and gives them an opportunity of a lifetime by helping connecting them to industry professionals. One of those is Dwayne’s partner, Jerry Wonda (who has produced the Fugees, Michael Jackson, Mary J Blige and a long list of amazing musicians after), who happened to know Taylor Swift’s managers! Dwayne gave me the contact information and wished me luck.

I received his message late at night, after a long day of work, putting the kids to sleep, taking care of the dog and going through more of my friend’s sad posts. I was mentally exhausted but Dwayne’s message gave me hope, so even though it was after midnight, I began to draft this letter.

I wanted it to be on paper so it wouldn’t be lost in the hundreds of emails their office must get. I wanted the important parts to stand out so I used some pictures and hand-wrote the notes all over it. I really hoped this unorthodox approach would get someone to open it and notice it. I drafted it, noticed that some of the sentences barely made sense but still, shrugged my shoulders and wrote the address on it. I thought, someone is going to think that this letter is from a crazy person. Whatever, nobody is going to see it anyway…

I honestly didn’t think anything would come of it. To me, just the effort of making this would probably make my friend feel less alone, that there were people out there who were doing their best to try to salvage the holiday for her. I put it into the mailbox the next day.

Many days passed and I didn’t hear anything. Some friends asked me a week later about it and I shrugged my shoulders. Who knows how many letters her manager gets. What’s the chances they would see it.

A few days ago, I saw some sad news.

The next day, she had surgery. She kept a pretty positive attitude. Her boyfriend, this amazing man that has been there helping her through this entire ordeal, started to post updates. He said the surgery went well, the cancer hadn’t spread and there was a chance that she would be able to be released for Christmas. What amazing news! We were all ecstatic. I was so happy for them. But then last night, I checked Facebook for updates and saw a post that she had tagged me into…

All in all Taylor Swift sent a huge package of Christmas ornaments, scarves, pictures, an album and more. Some of it was even autographed. I don’t know what to say except that Taylor Swift saved Xmas for this family. My friend went to bed hearing that her surgery was a success, that the cancer hadn’t spread, that she may leave early and just having the peace of mind that her daughter was preoccupied with these tremendously generous and amazing gifts from her biggest obsession. Her daughter probably didn’t sleep at all ha. I can’t believe how wonderful Taylor Swift and her team is. We are ever so grateful. It was the most generous thing they could have done and it means so much. Truly a miracle.

Then this Christmas Eve morning, I woke up to this…

Wherever you are Taylor, I’m going to have to agree, you definitely do have a Big Reputation, with all of us here in New York. Thank you for making this one giant magical amazing Christmas. You are truly an angel.

[2paperairplanesswift]

Once upon a time a 17 year old English girl fell in love with a talented but relatively unknown country singer by the name of Taylor Swift. PLOT TWIST: 11 years later she is one of the most successful artists in history and I just spent my Friday night hanging out with her at her house. Wanna know how this happened? I'm going to tell you my story. Get yourself comfy (maybe some cocoa or a nice sweater) and listen up.  I don't claim to be the biggest Taylor Swift fan in the world, but like every Swiftie I would always like to think I am. I have loved Taylor for longer than I can remember and one of my biggest dreams in life has always been to meet her.  On 3rd October 2017 I woke up around 5am as I do every morning, and I turned off my alarm and turned my internet on. I had a few notifications, Facebook messenger, twitter, tumblr....but then there was a DM? I never get twitter DM's, I'm not remotely interesting enough for anyone to want to speak to me, so who was this messaging me? Half asleep and with my eyes still adjusting to the light I opened the DM screen and saw the words 'Taylor Nation'. My whole body froze...that's not what is says is it? I rubbed my eyes and looked again...it was. I clicked on the message and read it quickly. I didn't really take it in, something about a Confidential Event. I dropped my phone onto my chest and looked at the ceiling trying to take in what I had just read. Was I having another Taylor dream ? Somehow I knew I wasn't - the last Taylor dream I had we were eating banana splits in an old railway carriage turned into a diner...i don't even like bananas. Somehow this seemed more plausible.  I closed twitter and decided to ignore it for a second and look at my other notifications. There was a facebook message from my Swiftie friend Bethy telling me to have a good day and reminding me to keep my DMs on....wait, she had one to? I replied back saying 'I have, you too?' and for a solid hour we were messaging eachother in code without either of us admitting what we had received in text...but we both knew.  I sent my details over to Taylor Nation and tried to get ready for work...putting my jeans on back to front, loading the laundry into the machine without adding the washing liquid, walking around my house doing things which usually came naturally but for some reason took extra effort and concentration...something I was lacking.  It was another 10 hours before my DM was replied to saying they would contact me soon. Soon? How soon is soon? Bethy and I continued talking to eachother imagining what it could be. Would we be in a live stream? A music video? Are we being invited to a show? An interview? In the back of our minds we wanted it to be a secret session but it wouldn't be would it? People like us with a handful of followers whose idea of a great Friday night is to play Yahtzee while listening to Taylor Swift on repeat wouldn't get invited, would we?  Luckily soon was only 3 hours and I got a call from a New York number. I was at my parents house so I ran up the stairs to take the call. Some other Swiftie friends in a group chat were messaging me about stuff and I was trying to pick up but notifications were sending my phone into meltdown. Eventually I managed to pick up...then hang up on Taylor Nation. Yes, I hung up on Taylor Swift's management group!!! (Sorry Ali).  I tried to call back but it went to voice mail, so I sent them a DM and went for a wee. Ali called me again while I was on the toilet so I was nervously trying to finish peeing and then ran out to the top of the stairs to take the call. The signal in my parents house was awful and I kept shouting 'huh' and 'hello?' down the phone but Ali was so lovely. She told me I had been picked to be invited to a special event because I was a super fan and I could bring a +1. I knew Bethy was already going and I made a pact with Megan if ever we had an opportunity to meet Taylor we would take eachother. I hastily gave her Megan's details and then passed Alex's on to Bethy for her call before screaming at Alex to keep 13th October clear (for the record he is so difficult). On top of this I was also on holiday that day and so going to this event also meant cutting my holiday short...but this was Taylor Swift!  I found out on Sunday 8th October that we had to meet at a hotel and would be shuttled to the location via bus. Unfortunately my bladder condition flared up on 10th October and I nervously contacted Taylor Nation for details of restroom facilities, scared I wouldn't be able to go. I cried as I waited for an email back but Taylor Nation were so lovely....you could tell they worked for Taylor. I went to the local Dr on holiday and got antibiotics and instructions for bedrest for the 2 days before the event.  My bladder was still bad by early morning day of the event but luckily started clearing up as I travelled from Devon to London.  The day of the event we all met up at Waterloo Station in London before travelling to the hotel where we needed to meet Taylor Nation. I was so nervous that everything was going wrong and had been in so much pain and in denial I was going to be well enough to go that I couldn't believe it was happening.  On the way from the tube to the hotel we saw a funeral directors with 4 gravestones in the window - were they for us when Taylor killed us with her music? A bus went past...the number 13? So typically Taylor!  We arrived at the hotel and checked in. Taylor Nation were in the lobby (we didn't know it was them). The receptionist asked if we were going to the knitting convention? I was confused...was this a cover story? All I kept thinking was 'I knit sweaters yo'....'no, we are going to meet some friends' we told them.  We went upstairs to our room to get ready and when came down we didn't know where to go. There seemed to be some type of line forming around the building and the sheer quantity of red lipstick and floaty dresses told me we were in the right place.  We checked in with Taylor Nation and as I gave Elise my ID she said she liked my passport cover. It's a picture of Taylor with 'grab your passport and my hand' written on it. She confirmed with me that she was the one I had been emailing and I thanked her for her help. I then signed a NDA and got my really cool wristband which has 'United Kingdom' in reputation font on it. And then we headed downstairs to wait for the bus.  I was on bus number 3/4 with Megan- Alex and Bethy had already gone on bus 2. I sat right behind the driver and he had his Satnav programmed with 3 different routes. He took the first route to somewhere random, loaded the second route and followed it, then loaded the third. It was clear he was trying to throw us off. As we entered part of the neighbourhood I felt very out of place. The cars had personalised plates, the houses were getting bigger, the hustle and bustle of London life seemed to getting further in the distance.  Suddenly the bus stopped in front of a beautiful house...this was it...this was Taylor's house? We were escorted off the bus and down to the side door which lead to a basement. The carpets were bouncy and the soundproof walls were so soft. We waited patiently for a few minutes and then suddenly the door opened and I caught a glimpse of a canvas of the New York skyline....this IS Taylor's house.  We were taken up the stairs to a central entrance hall with a staircase leading up to the top of the house and a corridor towards a large group of people with music playing - her Spotify playlist. The party was in the kitchen. Megan and I walked in to the kitchen, everything was so perfect. Ice buckets full of cans of soda and water, the best chicken bites I have ever tasted, cheese, vegetables and dip, reputation m&ms and cookies with REP on. There was so much I couldn't even see it all. We spotted our friend Bethy over in the corner by the French doors and headed over to speak to her. As we got there so did Scott Swift....the total legend and biggest fangirl ever. I told him I had briefly seen him in Nashville for 1989 and be told me the Mick Jagger story...the same one Taylor tells in interviews. Word for word and he beamed with pride as he told us stories about Taylor. There I was on a Friday night in Taylor Swift's house talking to her dad about 2 megastars as if we were all old friends. And he was really interested in us, not just polite conversation but so enthralled that we loved his daughter as much as he did. True to Scott Swift fashion he gave us some guitar picks as me made his way onto the next group.  I asked Alex where the toilet was and he took me out to the corridor...which hid a restroom behind huge grey panels. It was the nicest smelling toilet I have ever been in...and I have been in a lot! As I sat there peeing in Taylor's toilet and looking at the Jo Malone candle burning by the sink I wondered...how did I get here? Shortly after I left the toilet we were ushered across the entrance hall to a huge rectangular room. Opposite the door were large windows covered over by drapes and a single armchair - Taylor's seat. The floor was adorned with cushion after cushion and Megan and I ran to the closest cushion to Taylor. Megan sat right in front of her and I squeezed in behind. This was a SECRET SESSION!!!! A few minutes later I looked behind as the door opened and in walked a real angel to a round of screams and claps- red lips, natural 'I've just washed it' curly hair, snake boots and a huge smile. She sat down in front of us on the seat and said 'Hi I'm Taylor'. Just like at tour, only this time not to 70,000...to just 100.  And then the mystery was revealed. Taylor Nation hadn't just randomly picked us off of various social media sites - we had been hand selected by Taylor herself who had stalked us for over a year and sent TN our profiles to invite us. It hit me...Taylor picked me?!?! The woman I have been 'stalking' for 11 years had been stalking me too? Out of all the fans in Europe I was one she wanted to meet. I don't think that will ever fully sink in.  Taylor played us her album, telling us little stories about each song - the inspiration, the recording processes, the reactions from friends and family. It was so much to take in but watching Taylor mouth along to the words, act out different expressions and sitting-dance to all of the songs was hilarious - I wasn't in the presence of a celebrity, I was sitting with my best friend appreciating the biggest achievement she will ever have - true happiness. Taylor Swift is truly happy, about life, about her music, about her fans and it is nothing short of magical.  As each song played I really wondered how Taylor could top it, but she did...over and over again. Time went so quickly and it felt like the world's biggest and best slumber party, except we didn't get to sleep over.  At one point it was so hot that Scott Swift had to open all the doors to let the air in. As Taylor played his favourite song from the album she called for him to come and listen and he made a joke that he was actually handing out guitar picks to the neighbours.  After Taylor finished playing the album I looked around. Everyone was so Wonderstruck by what they had heard and I looked at Taylor and she looked so content. I don't know whether she was worried by what our reactions would be but all we had for this album was love...and I hope Taylor knows that.  After the listening session we were handed copies of the reputation magazines while we were waiting for photos. Megan and I were some of the first to go in. I was so focused on getting to the event that I hadn't even thought about what to say. Taylor ran over to Megan and hugged her and started talking about her bright pink hair. She loved it and it had been distracting her all evening. Then Taylor hugged me and I hugged her back like I had never hugged anyone before. She was so tall like a giraffe but with the grace of a swan...and I was me. I whispered 'thank you for inviting me' and she smiled. I didn't want to let go. As so many people were waiting they sort of rushed us with a picture. Taylor grabbed hold of us with her arms around our shoulders and smiled so sincerely at the camera. I wanted to talk to Taylor as I didn't get a chance but we were ushered off. As Megan walked out front if me I went to turn and talk to Taylor when Megan suddenly shouted 'we went to Nashville'. Taylor screamed back excitedly 'I know' with the biggest smile on her face. So...I didn't get to talk to Taylor but she knew we went to Nashville. She really did stalk me. When we left the room we were greeted by Mama Swift. I told her about my mum being terminally ill with Cancer and how she had gotten test results that day but she wanted me to be with Taylor instead. She gave me an extra hug and told me to hug my mum for her. I told my mum later and she started crying. Someone she has never met wished her well...it isn't just Taylor, it is her whole family.  We were taken back to the basement to collect Merch bags with a T-shirt, hat, sticker, pop socket and exclusive secret sessions keyring. It was so lovely of Taylor to give us something more to remember the day.  I got the bus back to the hotel and sat talking to Ali the whole way about the album and Nashville....I may have also invited her to CMA fest next year. By the time I got back to the hotel and collected my belongings (which had been taken from us earlier) I was shattered but I couldn't sleep. I posted on twitter and suddenly my phone couldn't stop vibrating...thousands of retweets and likes. I sat there trying to figure out what happened but I'm still not even sure I believe it myself. It took me 2 whole days to cry...not because I didn't care but because this wasn't the norm. I had stood outside countless radio stations and events before and not met Taylor...I had cried. I had come away from concerts and not been picked for Loft or Club Red etc and cried...but this was different. Not only had I met Taylor, she had picked me. I couldn't cry...I just felt a sense of fulfillment, of achievement, of love. By the time I did cry if wasn't because of what happened; it was because I missed her.  But this is not the end of my story with Taylor...I feel like this is the start of a new chapter. I came away with a whole mind of memories and countless new friends - affectionately known as FANtom Squad. Friday 13 October was the best night of my life; I will never be able to thank Taylor enough and I'll probably never have a chance to say what I wanted to say. But after years of hiding it & toning down this side of my life to please people I can honestly I am not ashamed of who I am because who I am is exactly how @taylorswift likes me. 

[thedailyhs]

Harry Styles: Brexit is the wrong direction

The last thing Harry Styles does before he goes to bed each night is send himself an email listing what he’s doing the next day. “Even if it’s really boring, like ‘9am: coffee’. If you have no plans, you’re at a loss sometimes. I find it difficult to drift.”

He thinks it’s probably a hangover from his six years in one of the biggest boybands of all time, One Direction, where every minute of their lives on tour was relentlessly micromanaged. World tours could last nearly a year — and they didn’t just involve playing stadiums. There was also endless promo to do during the day and recording sessions during “downtime”. One Direction: This Is Us — the 2013 behind-the-scenes documentary by the Super Size Me film-maker Morgan Spurlock — captured his bandmate Zayn Malik being hauled mercilessly out of his tour bus bunk bed, 10 minutes after falling asleep, to record a vocal line for a new song.

After Malik quit the band in early 2015, he published a book explaining how the intensely regimented schedule led to him developing an eating disorder. “I didn’t feel like I had control over anything else in my life, but food was something I could control, so I did,” he wrote. In contrast, Styles seems to have thrived on the discipline.

“I love routine,” he explains. “You have it when you’re younger. You have school at this time, so breakfast at this time, you get up at this time. Even when people finish school, it’s a bit tough to know what to do with yourself.”

Perhaps it was a way for him to hold onto some of that youth. He was 16 when he moved from Cheshire to London as an X Factor hopeful. It was 2010, the year Simon Cowell groomed five nubile teenage boys who hadn’t made it through the solo auditions to form a supergroup. Styles became the most famous and lusted-after member of what quickly became the most famous and lusted-after boyband in the world. According to this year’s Rich List, he is now worth £40m.

Now 23, Styles is experimenting with being master of his own universe. One Direction went on “indefinite hiatus” last year and he has spent the intervening months writing and recording his debut solo album and filming his first movie role for Christopher Nolan’s war epic, Dunkirk, due for release this summer. The album is called Harry Styles — perhaps the most breathlessly anticipated solo record since Robbie left Take That. Its first single, Sign of the Times — a swooping, bombastic, 5½-minute ballad — topped the charts in 84 countries on the day of its release. But the moment it really hits me what an enormous deal he is is when he calls me out of the blue one Friday afternoon to arrange our interview.

“Hi, it’s Harry,” coos the young, northwestern voice belonging to the withheld number.

“Harry who?” I bark, assuming it’s some kid with a gap-year job trying to sell me something.

“Harry Styles. Do you have time to get some lunch next week?”

The “personal touch” is the mark of the true global superstar. Bono, Chris Martin and Taylor Swift all know the power of sidestepping the bureaucracy of managers and PRs to deliver their own intimate invitations. It sends a number of messages, most obviously: I am normal and relatable and can use a phone. But also: I alone control my destiny. After establishing that my diary is pretty free, Styles sets a date at one of his favourite central London restaurants. He’ll book.

Three days later, I arrive at the restaurant to find there is no reservation for Harry Styles. (Of course not. What kind of megastar would book a table under their own name?) There is a table for someone with a similar name, but as I don’t know it and the table has a special VIP request on it, the waiter is understandably reluctant to seat little old me there. Five minutes later, “Harry Spring” bounds in looking a lot like Harry Styles and vouches for me. Phew.

He is lovely from the off — not just to me, but to all the serving staff. Warm hugs and handshakes for everyone, “pleases” and “thank-yous” after every other word. We sit down and he immediately jumps back up to help the waiter carry some waters over.

He is wearing jeans, tan ankle boots and a Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned low enough to catch a generous eyeful of his well-maintained torso and the countless tattoos that splatter his chest and left arm. His hair is pushed back off his face by a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head. He wears a crucifix around his neck and his fingers are weighed down by chunky silver rings. Yes, he is gorgeous: expressive, boyish face; gentle demeanour; impeccable manners. But without wishing to dent his heartthrob status, I’m not sure the nagging urge I have to take him home with me is desire. I think I want him as my son.

He has brought two phones with him — one for personal use (it has a screensaver of his baby goddaughter on it) and a pink one to play me his new album. Though just 23, he is already godfather to three kids. Most of his close friends, he says, are older than him. “Moving to London … I just wanted to learn from people who would have advice,” he explains. His friendship with the 32-year-old Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw initially led to rumours that they were in a romance, though Styles has denied he is bisexual. These days speculation about his love life largely revolves around A-list women.

He orders chicken paillard and muses about going pescatarian. “I did it for two weeks as a test. I think I’ll do it at some point for a longer time.” Why does he want to do it? He’s not sure, but “a little bit of discipline is good”, he thinks

.I ask him if he was aware of Zayn Malik’s eating disorder; he says no. Does he wish he had known so he could have done something to help? “I mean, yes, obviously. If anyone is ever going through anything, you always feel like you should know, so you could have done something. But it’s not always how it goes, is it? In the same way that I don’t talk about stuff, other people don’t always talk about stuff, and maybe that’s how they deal with stuff.”

He refuses to say a bad word about his life in One Direction. “It’s very hard to think of it as not this amazing thing. It’s really hard to complain.” While he and the other members of the band are “on hiatus”, Malik is the only one officially to quit. He has since made some rather disparaging comments in the press about One Direction’s music, and has also recorded a song with Taylor Swift — Styles’s ex — for the Fifty Shades Darker film soundtrack. Has he seen much of him recently? There is a pause.

“Um … not so much.” Is it a strained relationship? “It’s OK. I think we’re both happy for each other that we’re doing what we want to do and everyone’s having a good time.”

His smile returns when I ask him about the other three members of the band. “Everyone’s working so much at the moment, but I’ve seen them and we’ve hung out.”

When did he last speak to Simon Cowell? “Recently, actually. Two weeks ago.” He called after hearing an advance copy of Sign of the Times. “He said he really liked it and he was very proud of me. It was very friendly …” he catches himself “… not like past phone calls haven’t been friendly, but I didn’t get that nervy ‘the boss is calling’ feel, which was nice.”

He is itching to play me the album, but before he does I’d like to know why he wanted to go solo. “At certain times you write songs where you just want to tell the whole story,” he says. “Like, if you write a song that’s personal to you, it’s tough to hand that over to a band.”

What things did he want to say? He winces. He has spent the past seven years trying to reveal as little about himself as possible. One Direction press interviews rarely lasted longer than 10 minutes, with four other band members to hide behind. This level of personal dissection is new. “I really wanted it to be honest. I didn’t want to edit lyrics,” he says. “Making this album is one of the best times I’ve ever had. But it’s a much more vulnerable feeling coming to put it out than I’ve experienced before.”

So, to the album. Heavily indebted to 1960s and 1970s rock, psychedelia, alt-country and glam, it’s about as far from One Direction’s high-pitched teeny bop as he could run. He wrote and recorded most of it over a period of two months last summer in a studio in Jamaica. Styles says he was inspired by the 1970s American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson and stuff his parents used to play when he was younger: Fleetwood Mac, the Beatles and the Stones from his father; Norah Jones and Shania Twain from his mother.

The influences might not be very fashionable, but perhaps that’s the point. For all of One Direction’s commercial success, I still struggle to hum a single one of their tunes. Styles has replaced their transient pop flotsam with something more permanent. And it works: a few of the tracks already sound like classics. Lyrically, it’s saturated with sex, longing and heartache — a rare glimpse into his personal life. The final song is called From the Dining Table and begins: “Woke up alone in this hotel room. Played with myself, where were you? Fell back asleep, got drunk by noon, I’ve never felt less cool.”

Played with yourself? You dirty boy!

“Noooo! Played with my thoughts!” he backpedals.

Last month he gave an interview to Rolling Stone magazine in which he mentioned that one woman in particular had been a “huge part of the album. Sometimes you want to tip the hat, and sometimes you just want to give them the whole cap … and hope they know it’s just for them.” The comment was seized upon by fans and press as proof the album is all about Kendall Jenner, the model, reality-TV star and half-sister of Kim Kardashian with whom Styles is said to have had an on-off relationship over the past couple of years.

Would he care to set the record straight? Obviously not. “It doesn’t feel to me like [the album] is a romantic thing about one person. It’s more about me than anyone else. I feel like it’s really easy to say it’s about this person, and that’s what’s really interesting. I’ve never felt a massive desire to talk about stuff like that.”

I do feel for him. His love life has always come under intense scrutiny. In 2012, aged 18, he and Taylor Swift became front-page news when they were papped on their second date, strolling around Central Park. They broke up soon afterwards, but fascination with their relationship was compounded when Swift reportedly wrote at least two songs about him on her next album (Out of the Woods and Style).

Does the glaring spotlight on his love life make it hard for relationships to develop naturally?

“Relationships are hard anyway. You don’t always know what something is straight away — you can’t say, ‘Oh, in a week I’m going to know what this is.’ Often you end up being told what something is before you know what it is yourself. All of that stuff happened when I was quite young as well and it’s confusing when you haven’t been in a ton of relationships.”

Has he had to forego that side of his life or has he been able to have love affairs on the quiet?

“Not in the last while, because I’ve been doing [the album] and I did a lot of … I don’t know really. No, I feel like I just worked a lot in the band. There was so much going on.”

How many times has he been in love?

“I don’t know. I don’t know how you define it, so it’s tough [to answer], right?”

I think you know when it happens …

“Well, that’s what they say.” He laughs awkwardly and reaches for the pink phone. “Erm, do you want to hear another song?”

He has always been a charmer and ladies’ man. His older sister, Gemma (a freelance writer on technology and millennial trends), wrote an article for Another Man magazine recently in which she recalled a family holiday to Cyprus with seven-year-old Harry. “He was holding court around the pool with people three times his age. When he left on a shuttle bus back to the airport … there was a crowd of young, adult women gathered on the pavement waving him off through the window, shouting their goodbyes.”

He and Gemma were raised in Cheshire. Their father was a financial adviser, but now works in insurance. Styles was seven when his parents divorced. He remembers living in a pub for four years while his mother took a job as a landlady. He is thankful that his parents remained on amicable terms, even after his mother remarried.

“I’m lucky in that I never had to do that thing [of experiencing divided loyalties] when they split up. Feeling loved and supported by them never changed during that.”

He still speaks to his mother on the phone most days. “A lot of friends of mine say, ‘Your mum’s a really good mum.’ She’s never made me feel like I have to prove myself. A lot of people grow up not really talking about how they feel about each other, but our house was always filled with loving each other.”

From 14 he had a job at his local bakery, getting up at 5am each Saturday. He always thought he’d be a physiotherapist, “but then we had a workshop at school where we went in to talk about what we wanted to do and essentially someone told me there were no jobs in that, so I should pick something else. I was a little stumped, to be honest.”

He formed a group with some schoolmates called White Eskimo and they entered a local battle of the bands competition. “I remember how nervous I was before, but then afterwards, that feeling about everyone watching you do something that you were enjoying really resonated with me. That adrenaline rush I like.”

He has a busy year planned, with a three-month solo world tour starting in September. The movie Dunkirk is released in July. He hasn’t seen it yet, so doesn’t know how big his role as a British soldier will be. There is a rumour that he is also due to play Mick Jagger in a biopic, which he denies — though his chosen look for the solo album is very flouncy, 1970s, androgynous Jagger. “I’ve honestly never heard anything about the film. I don’t even think it’s a thing.”

If the ruched blouses are one clue that his boyband days are well behind him, another is his answer to the following question: how will he vote in the general election? “Honestly, I’m probably going to vote for whoever is against Brexit.”

Wow, a media-groomed star giving an opinion on something vaguely controversial. Why is he so anti-Brexit? “I’m not educated enough on the subject to really go toe-to-toe with someone about it, but disregarding the economic stuff and all of that, I think what it symbolises is the opposite of the world I would like to be in. I think the world should be more about being together and being better together and joining together, and I think it’s the opposite of that.”

Despite having 30m followers on Twitter and 20.3m on Instagram, he is surprisingly quiet on social media. “I heard someone once say, if Twitter was a house party and you knew that 30% of everyone there was amazing and everyone else in there was really horrible to each other, you just wouldn’t go,” he explains.

He is a lot more serious and sensible than all the videos of him goofing around in his One Direction days had led me to believe. After three hours in his company, I can’t detect any vices — he tells me he barely even drinks. “The last two years of touring, I found the routine nicer to get up and go for a run or something. I don’t like drinking when I’m working at all, even the days before. I usually have a drink when I’m out with friends, but then usually go for a month without drinking.”

It’s finally time for him to go. What did last night’s email say he has to do next, I wonder. “I’m going for a haircut,” he smiles. What a good boy.