Zayn Malik’s biggest music critic is his 5-year-old daughter, Khai.
“There’s some songs, like I’ve said a few times, that I don’t want to play to her because obviously, there’s cuss words and stuff in there, concepts a bit adult, but she loves my music and she definitely gives me an opinion,” Zayn, 33, said during his Tuesday, March 31, appearance on SiriusXM’s The Pulse.
The “Pillow Talk” singer, who shares Khai with ex Gigi Hadid, continued, “You know, she does this thing where she does, like, thumbs up, thumbs down, thumb sideways, and if you get a thumbs up and a thumb sideways, it means it’s pretty good.”
As for Khai’s opinion on Zayn’s upcoming album, Konnakol, the former One Direction member said, “She gave me a double thumbs up for a few songs, and there was like, a side one for one or two, I think, that she wasn’t really into.”
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Zayn added that even Khai’s musical tastes influenced the album, which is out April 17.
“She’s into Twice. She’s into Blackpink,” Zayn said, referring to the K-Pop girl groups. “That was kind of, you know, a big reason behind why I did the feature with Jisoo, if I’m being honest, because my daughter’s such a big fan, and I wanted to be cool, you know.” (Zayn and Blackpink’s Jisoo, 31, released their single “Eyes Closed” in October 2025.)
“I got some good dad points for that,” the musician continued. “She loves it. Yeah, I’m always thinking about her when I’m making my music, and she loves singing and dancing too.”
While Khai helps Zayn with his solo music, the dad of one revealed that his daughter doesn’t quite yet understand his One Direction era.
“I think, you know, she’s 5. She has some concept of it,” he explained. “I don’t think she really understands what it is, but she knows her dad’s a pop star, you know, and her dad sings, and she flexes it a little bit sometimes as a 5-year-old does, you know. So yeah, she’s somewhat aware, but I don’t think she understands the full extent of it.”
Zayn and Hadid, 30, welcomed Khai in September 2020. The pair later split in 2021 after six years of dating, but they remained amicable coparents.
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“Zayn and I do our custody schedule months in advance,” Hadid told Vogue in March 2025. “That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t change here and there, but we help each other out and have each other’s backs.”
The model continued, “There is the hard part of the world knowing this much, and thinking they know everything. And at the end of the day, we’re not interested in giving everyone our whole story. What we are interested in is raising our daughter together, with so much respect for each other, and not just as coparents, but what we’ve been through together.”