Zayn Malik doesn't want to put a "label" on his relationship with Gigi Hadid

He said: "I'm really thankful that I met her ... We're adults. We don't need to put a label on it, make it something for people's expectations. I had a very negative outlook on things [while recording my first solo album]. That might have been adolescence or testosterone or whatever the f**k was running through my body at the time. She's helped me to look at things from a positive angle."

Zayn and Gigi, 23, were one of the star attractions at the annual Met Gala fundraiser in May 2016, when they walked the red carpet together.

But the 'Dusk Till Dawn' hitmaker - who has previously admitted to suffering from anxiety - has revealed he has no ambitions to return to the Met Gala, saying it doesn't chime with his personality and that it represented everything he hates about celebrity culture.

He told the new issue of GQ magazine: "I did go, but I didn't go there to be like, 'Yo, take me serious'. I was taking the p**s! I went there as my favourite 'Mortal Kombat' character, Jax.

"The Met Gala is not necessarily anything that I ever knew about or was about. But my [former] stylist ... would say to me, 'This is really good for you to do.' And no matter how strong you are mentally, you can always be swayed to do certain things.

"Now, it's not something I would go to. I'd rather be sitting at my house, doing something productive, than dressing up in really expensive clothes and being photographed on a red carpet ... To do the self-indulgent, 'Look at me, I'm amazing' thing on the red carpet', it's not me."