When I look back, I can see how ill I was: Zayn Malik

It's not easy being a celebrity, and Zayn Malik's battle with anxiety just drives the point home.

In Zayn, his autobiography that came out on November 1, the singer reveals that the pressures of fame often kept him from eating.

"Something I've never talked about in public before, but which I have come to terms with since leaving the band, is that I was suffering from an eating disorder," Malik writes in an excerpt obtained by The Sun. "I'd just go for days -- sometimes two or three days straight -- without eating anything at all. It got quite serious, although at the time I didn't recognize it for what it was."

Also read: Gigi calls half-Pakistani Zayn Malik 'Middle-Eastern'. Why are we not surprised?

His condition was at its worst right before his final tour with former band One Direction.

“When I look back at the images of myself from around November 2014, before the final tour, I can see how ill I was. Something I’ve never talked about in public before, but which I have come to terms with since leaving the band, is that I was suffering from an eating disorder.”

However, in a latter interview with Associated Press, Zayn distanced himself from this claim of suffering from an eating disorder, reports The Guardian.

“I realised that I wasn’t eating as much just down to the amount of work that we were doing. Our schedule was kind of crazy, so we were all over the place.”

“It was just more down to losing track of, you know, actually eating, and being super busy and getting caught up with other things that 17- or 18-year-olds do, which normally entails them going out, drinking or partying.”

“I was never diagnosed with [an eating disorder],” he said, adding that he’s better at managing his diet now.