Zayn Malik
Thousands of One Direction fans allegedly committed suicide after Zayn Malik left the band, a vicious Twitter rumor claims. Reuters

Millions of teenage hearts were broken when Zayn Malik announced his departure from One Direction, but now a vicious rumor has spread throughout Twitter. Thousands of fans allegedly committed suicide because Malik left the band, the rumor claims. Of course, there’s no evidence of this support. But in the world of Twitter, all people need is a sensational 140-character tweet for a rumor to gain momentum.

Like any invalid rumor, the story changes with each individual tweet. Some people say there has been 2,000 deaths and others claim there were 7 million. Again, if there was even one suicide because Malik decided to cut ties with the band, it has not been reported.

It’s not the first time the One Direction fandom claimed people committed suicide. More than 40 Larry Shippers -- a sub-fan group of 1D that fantasize about a fictitious romance between Harry Styles and Louis Tomilson -- supposedly killed themselves after a Channel 4 documentary about One Direction back in August 2013.

In the “Crazy About One Direction” documentary, a fan said she would not want to date one of the boys because of the backlash she would probably have to deal with. "I wouldn’t like girls telling me to die and stuff,” she said.

Even though Malik claimed he left One Direction because he wanted to be a normal 22-year-old, there’s been speculation that fiancée Perrie Edwards had something to do with his decision to quit. She was quickly -- and unofficially -- dubbed the “Yoko Ono of One Direction.” He might not have cited his lover as a reason, but Malik did post a cryptic tweet about Edwards days before he left the band.

“I'm 22 years old ... I love a girl named Perrie Edwards. And there's a lot of jealous f---s in this world I'm sorry for what it looks like,” he said.

Harmful trends like “cut for Zayn” also were top-trending topics after Mailk announced he quit 1D.

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