Zayn Malik would advise his younger self against joining One Direction

Zayn Malik wouldn't sign up to One Direction if he had the opportunity to go back in time.

The 23-year-old pop star rose to fame and fortune as a member of the boyband, which was formed on British reality show The X Factor, when he was 17 years old.

At that age, he thought money and a recording contract would make him happy without considering the complications which come with fame, so if he had the chance to go back, he would give himself more time to grow up before joining the group.

“I would say (to my younger self), ‘Do your research and be a bit more prepared about certain situations before you make a decision.,'" he told Britain's ES magazine. “But I probably wouldn’t have (signed up) - I would’ve waited a couple more extra years. Just so I had that time to just get my head around being a famous person. I’ve never been able to have, what’s the word? Anonymity. If I could go back, I’d have a few more years of anonymity.”

Zayn, who left the group in 2015, is currently promoting his memoir titled Zayn, in which he has come clean about his departure from the band, his eating disorder during the height of their fame and his battle with anxiety over live performances.

Since he went solo, he has moved to Los Angeles and in the memoir he revealed he has already been booted out of two rentals because of noise complaints.

"We started out in a futuristic modern house in the Hollywood Hills, but got kicked out after multiple noise complaints," he wrote. Then we moved to an even bigger house in Malibu where we had a massive BBQ party. That was my first party in LA and we got kicked out of the house when that party got a little rowdy, so we moved again."