On 23 July, fans everywhere celebrated One Direction’s 12 year anniversary.
The band was first formed in 2010, by judges of the X Factor: Simon Cowell, Nicole Scherzinger and Louis Walsh. The five boys were set to leave the competition before we found out they had instead been placed in a band.
At the time, we as viewers weren’t shown much of the actual process, we didn’t get to see the thinking that went behind putting them together. To celebrate the anniversary, the show finally released this never before seen footage.
The video
The four-minute long video showed the conversation the three judges had that led to One Direction being formed.
We see Louis, Simon and Nicole looking through photos of the boys that didn’t get through and deliberating.
“Let’s do an imaginary bog group” suggested Nicole, and started with picking up Niall Horan’s photo. Next she picked up Harry Styles’ photo and they all agreed that they liked him, before Nicole suggested putting him with Niall.
“They’re the cutest boy band ever. I love it” Nicole gushed, as they added in Louis Tomlinson third.
“The little girls are gonna love them.”
She said “The little girls are gonna love them” and she couldn’t have been more right.
The judges went on to comment on how the boys were too talented to get rid of and they needed a good boy group: “they have just the right look and right charisma on stage. They’ll be really great in a boy-band together.”
Next Nicole picked out Liam Payne and Louis and Simon agreed. Although Simon did make the comment: “He thinks he’s better than everyone else in that group” and seemed unsure. Nicole convinced Simon, claiming that Liam could be the leader.
Louis added: “He’s got the confidence. He’s good and consistent.” And so Liam got added to the group pile.
Finally they added in Zayn Malik, in agreement of how good they all looked together. “The category I want is them,” said Simon.
And there we have it. That’s how one of the biggest boy-bands in the world was formed!
A surprise contribution
Fans were shocked, as previously it had been common knowledge that Simon Cowell was the one to form One Direction, although now it became clear the real instigator was Nicole Scherzinger. It was her idea and she handpicked almost all the boys.
Without her, who knows if One Direction would have ever existed.