Former One Direction Buddies Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson Wage Twitter Word War

Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson used to appear as the closest of friends among the five members of the boy band One Direction. When Malik left the group in March, the departure was described as amicable. Well, apparently it wasn't, and the cracks are now showing between these two former friends who have taken their fight to Twitter.

"@Louis_Tomlinson remember when you had a life and stopped making b**chy comments about mine ?" Malik wrote in a now-deleted Twitter post last Wednesday.

The tweet was reportedly in response to a series of Twitter exchanges between records producer Naughty Boy and Tomlinson.

Backtracking a bit, after Malik left One Direction, saying he wanted a normal life again as the reason for leaving, he was seen making music in the studio with Naughty Boy just one day after his official exit from the band. This did not sit well with Tomlinson.

On May 6, Naughty Boy posted an image on Twitter with him and Malik, captioning it, "Replace this."

Tomlinson reacted and wrote in response: "@NaughtyBoyMusic Jesus forgot you were such an in demand producer....How does it feel to be riding on the back on someone else's career?"

Malik's tweet was a reply to that post by Tomlinson. Malik then also retweeted Naughty Boy's "Replace this" message to show support and solidarity.

Tomlinson's feud with Naughty Boy has been going on for more than a month now.

The producer shared his thoughts on the feud with British magazine Heat. "There seems to be some needless provoking going on. [Louis] was deliberately adding to the provoking. I don't think that's fair. Especially on Zayn, that's not fair. Right now, there needs to be calm. He could have said that to me privately. Doing it openly is another act of provocation that's not needed," Naughty Boy said.

The fight is getting messy, and people who were used to seeing Malik and Tomlinson very close to each other during their One Direction days are not very happy about the turn of events. Both Malik and Tomlinson even have the same tattoo: "Bus 1", which is their tour bus where they spent a lot of time together while on tour. The tattoo is on Malik's left hand while it is on Tomlinson's right arm.