Niall Horan quit Simon Cowell’s record label for a ‘fresh start’ after One Direction

Niall Horan reveals he quit Simon Cowell’s record label for a ‘fresh start’, but hopes the music mogul doesn’t ‘hate him’.

The One Direction star, 23, said that he decided to join a rival record label to release his debut solo album as he wanted to ‘broaden’ his horizons.

“We were very close to Simon for years and had a lot of success together. I just felt like I wanted and needed a fresh start,” he told the Sun.

“It’s a long time to be at a label I wanted to broaden my horizons and try something new."

When asked if the X Factor head honcho was upset that he had decided to go a different way, he said: “I hope not, please don’t hate me."

Horan decided to sign a record deal with Capitol Records to release his debut solo material last year, despite Cowell’s eagerness to have him stay at SyCo.

Harry Styles, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson have also broken away from Cowell’s label to release their own music elsewhere.

But despite parting ways with the music mogul to release solo material, it seems that the boys will stick with SyCo when it comes to releasing more One Direction music.

“We both know that and when One Direction come back we’ll still have albums left to do,” Horan told the paper.