One Direction fans send me death threats because of this picture

It’s all because they think I told Niall to ‘go away’


I was 16, wide eyed, and about to take my GCSEs. One Direction were getting pretty big, and I was dying to meet them. They were due to leave Heathrow Airport one morning so, being eager, my friend and I set off to go meet them.

After getting photos with the other boys, we made our way over to Liam Payne and Niall Horan who were talking to another set of fans. Sheepishly we asked for a photo with the two of them.

Liam, being the babe that he is, wrapped his arms around us – while tugging Niall, who didn’t realise we had asked for the photo.

Me and my boys

It was great, we had fun – and after the rounds of posting the photos on all of our social media as well as making the most of changing our profile pictures, we thought that was it.

Fast forward a couple of months: I receive a text from my friend telling me to get on Twitter immediately and search “Niall go away”. Upon doing so, I discovered my photo plastered all over the internet claiming that my friend and I had told Niall to go away, but Liam pulled him back in.

People were disgusted, outraged, and angry. I could feel the hatred from each tweet about a story that wasn’t true. And soon enough, they found our Twitters and the death threats started to roll in.

Multilingual hate

Facebook groups were made saying “1 like = 1 stab”. People tweeted me saying they would kill me, attack me, or hoped that I would be hit by a car and (my personal favourite) that I should be “bitchslapped by hell”.

Being in a situation where a group of people are sending you death threats could be intimidating and frightening for some, but it’s hard to take it all seriously when someone says they’re going to kill you and their Twitter handle is “@Harrysprincess”.

My brother did not help the cause

Despite myself, my friends, and other One Direction fans trying to clear my name, it came to no avail. There is still a proportion of Directioners who truly believe that I am a heartless wench.

Every few years when there is a reminiscent trend, my photo comes up saying “You’re a true Directioner if you remember this”, and then the hatred starts all over again.

Remember me xo

I still don’t know why someone stole my photo and made up the story and I still don’t know if I’ll ever fully convince everyone that I didn’t tell Niall to go away.

But, at the end of the day, I still got to meet One Direction and have a great party story to tell. So who’s the real winner here?