Niall Horan realised he'd never be able to leave a hotel room and go for a walk as a member of One Direction following a freakish fan moment in Peru.
The singer admitted he was the one band member who would always challenge handlers' lockdown rules, begging them to let him leave the group's hotel and wander through the streets and play tourist before a gig in a new city.
"I struggled with it," Niall explained in a new interview with Dermot O'Leary for Audible's People, Just People podcast.
"We were 17, 18, 19 for the first few years... and I have to be doing something all the time. And the thought of closing my curtains in my hotel room was madness to me," he recalled.
Pondering: "But you can't get inside the brain of a fan, and now I completely get it, but at the time, you’re like..., 'Just let us out! We just want to walk down the street. You must understand!'"
It took a moment of madness in Lima for the singer to realise how dangerous leaving his hotel room could be.
"We get into Lima at 1am and we’re driving from the airport to the hotel, and we see a shopping centre," he said.
"Me and Louie (Tomlinson) and Liam (Payne) were like, 'OK, when we get up tomorrow morning we'll have a little stroll around there'," Horan went on.
However, fans had already gathered hoping to catch sight of the band.
"The next morning we wake up and me and Louie were playing FIFA (videogame) in the room, and Liam comes up and is like, 'Come on, let’s go. And Louie still had his curtains pulled. Then Louie goes, 'Just have a look out that window'," Horan recounted, adding: "The police had done a headcount, and there were 10,000 people in the street the whole time."
