“I think I’m going to go with the Scottish, they’re our Celtic brothers, you know, I’m going to stick with them.”
Former One Direction star Niall Horan has said he will be supporting Scotland at this year’s World Cup.
The 32-year-old Irish singer who has just released his fourth studio album Dinner Party, was speaking ahead of his performance at Capital’s Summertime Ball on Saturday – during which he performed his old boyband’s song Steal My Girl.
When asked who he would support ahead of the start of the World Cup in the US, Mexico and Canada on Thursday, Horan told the Press Association: “I think I’m going to go with the Scottish, they’re our Celtic brothers, you know, I’m going to stick with them.”
In recent years, Horan has formed a close friendship with West Lothian superstar Lewis Capaldi. The pair bonded over social media when Niall reached out to Lewis in 2017 via a direct message to show his love for the song ‘Lost On You’.
Capaldi would go on to open for Niall during his 2018 tour before going on to co-star alongside his boy band pal in the 2022 documentary Niall Horan’s Homecoming: The Road to Mullingar, which followed them on a road trip across Ireland.
In 2024, during his show in Aberdeen’s P&J Live Arena, Horan was captured on camera waving around the Saltire flag.
One Direction formed in 2010, when they were put together by Simon Cowell on ITV talent show The X Factor.
One of the group’s members, Liam Payne, died after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina in 2024, and the boyband’s surviving members, Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik, reunited at his funeral with former manager, Cowell, in November that year.
They had four UK number one singles and four UK number one albums, and are best known for songs such as Story Of My Life, What Makes You Beautiful and Best Song Ever. Horan’s solo career was launched after he and his fellow One Direction band members went on hiatus in 2016, almost a year after Malik left the group.
He released his debut solo album, Flicker, in 2017, and the albums Heartbreak Weather in 2020 and The Show in 2023.
Speaking about this weekend’s Capital’s Summertime Ball, he described the day festival, which takes place annually at Wembley Stadium, as “a big part of my career for the last 15 years”.
Horan added: “Any opportunity I get to play at Jingle Bell Balls or Summertime Balls, it’s always amazing, and there’s not many companies that can pull off a gig of this size with the line-up that we have, so it’s a pleasure to be here.”
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