Workers request compassionate leave after Zayn Malik quits One Direction

 
Moving on: Zayn Malik has quit One Direction (Picture: PA)
Rachel Blundy26 March 2015
The Weekender

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Hundreds of workers sought advice from lawyers today over whether they could take compassionate leave after singer Zayn Malik quit boyband One Direction.

More than 200 people are reported to have phoned employment law experts at Manchester based firm Peninsula to find out whether they could justify the time off to their bosses.

The company received the calls between 6pm yesterday and 9.30am today, according to reports in the Manchester Evening News.

Alan Price, the firm's employment law director, tweeted: "Hard to believe but we have received calls from bosses whose staff requested compassionate leave over Zayn Malik leaving 1D".

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/AWBellMENMedia" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-76186-https://twitter.com/AWBellMENMedia" data-vars-event-id="c23">@AWBellMENMedia</a> Hard to believe but we have received calls from bosses whose staff requested compassionate leave over Zayn Malik leaving 1D— Alan Price (@alan__price) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/alan__price/status/581037248256311297" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-76186-https://twitter.com/alan__price/status/581037248256311297" data-vars-event-id="c23">March 26, 2015</a>

Zayn, 22, announced he was quitting the band yesterday afternoon so he can have the life of a "normal 22-year-old".

Concerns were raised today after the hashtag #cut4zayn started trending on Twitter - prompting fears that fans were being encouraged to self-harm in the wake of the star's decision.

One Direction's Zayn Malik - In pictures

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In other posts on social media, some young fans have described how they abandoned lessons at school because they could not stop crying after hearing the news.

Today Simon Cowell's fellow X Factor judge Louis Walsh said he had heard rumours for a number of weeks that "everything wasn't happy in paradise" for One Direction.

He told Irish radio station RTE Radio One: "The problem with these guys is they've been in a bubble for the last five years, pressure, working, a lot harder than people think, so something had to give. So Zayn was the first person just to crack up a little bit."

Last night, band member Harry Styles wiped away tears as the band performed the latest leg of their On The Road Again Tour in Jakarta, Indonesia, just hours after the news of Malik's leaving broke.

One Direction's latest album, Four, topped the US Billboard Top 200 chart making them the first group in history to debut at number one with their first four albums.

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