Nearly a decade has passed since the popular British boy band One Direction announced their infamous hiatus, prompting the group’s members to go solo. While all of them have established successful solo careers, that doesn’t mean the group has been forgotten about. There are still millions of people who listen to chart-topping songs of the band, and revisit the memories the quintet shared.

With that being said, everyone who had heard of the band would also know about the dating rumours that followed two of the band’s members, Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles. Despite the five going their separate ways, these conspiracy theories among fans continues to follow them till date.

But now in a conversation with the Brazilian news outlet G1 prior to the Latin American leg of his ‘Faith in the Future’ World Tour, Louis Tomlinson broke silence and got real about these speculations. When straightforwardly asked about ‘Larries’ (a ship name), the singer said, “What’s tough is — I realized this some years ago — there is nothing I can say,” adding, “There is nothing I can do to dispel the believers of that conspiracy.”

“They are so intertwined with what they believe to be the truth now that they won’t actually see the truth for what it is,” the ‘Always You’ singer went on to say.

The singer further mentioned that such rumours can become irritating for him at times. He also referred to the infamous Babygate theories that emerged after the birth of his son, Freddie Reign. “I’d be lying if I … it does irritate me a little bit, but it is just kind of the nature of the job. At times when it gets far too personal, I have my son, Freddie. He’s the most important person in my life. Occasionally, it kind of broaches some stuff that’s really unfair.”

“It kind of just is this thing that exists now — there’s nothing I can do about it, there’s nothing I can say about it to stop people from making up what they want to make up,” Tomlinson said, adding, “So, so be it.”

Even after the group disbanded in 2015, fan fictions and many social media posts dedicated to the ‘Larry’ conspiracy continued to go on. Numerous videos emerged on the internet, with many netizens sharing their own imaginative versions of the alleged romance story.