‘Fifty Shades Darker’ Music: Zayn Malik Talks About Taylor Swift Collaboration

Taylor Swift received a lot of flak from some of her peers earlier this year, but former One Direction band member Zayn Malik is not one of them.

In fact, Malik said it was quite easy working with Swift. The two collaborated on the song “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever,” which will be used as a soundtrack for “Fifty Shades Darker.”

Malik recently talked about his collaboration with Swift during a guest appearance on The Elvis Duran and The Morning Show. “We were kind of in separate places when I mentioned the idea to her. I spoke to her on the phone and she heard the song because (producer) Jack [Antonoff] had played it to her. So she really liked it and she went in the studio the next day,” he said.

Malik added that he got good vibes from Swift while they worked together, since she is best friends with his girlfriend, supermodel Gigi Hadid. “The interesting thing was she’s actually friends with Gi, so she already reached out because Jack had just played her the song anyway, just because we’d done it together and she really liked it…so I asked if she wanted to be on it and she was cool with it,” she said.

Hadid is actually quite pleased with their collaboration. After the song was released, she posted about it on her Twitter page and placed a happy emoji beside her message.

Malik also said that he finds writing songs very therapeutic, according to Billboard. “Whether that’s writing something down for yourself or writing it down in a memoir or writing it down in a song, it’s just a way of alleviating something that’s on your mind and getting it out there, so for me it was kind of a little bit of that and I kind of enjoyed it,” he said.

“Fifty Shades Darker,” which is directed by James Foley, will be released on Feb. 8, 2017.