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Los Angeles - A girl photographed with Zayn Malik in Thailand received death threats from One Direction fans.
Lauren Richardson - who insists nothing happened with the 22-year-old star, despite them being pictured holding hands - suffered a furious backlash from the group's supporters when she posted the image on her Instagram page.
She said: "It was really intense because when I put the picture up they just kind of shouted out 'We hate you' and 'You should die, you're a home wrecker'. They would put up pictures of gun faces and say 'Share your location, we want to see you. We're going to hunt you down.'
"It was quite extreme at the time and my friends told me to turn off the notifications, it's the best way to try and ignore it. But every picture I put up it was just hate on me."
When the 26-year-old beauty felt the abuse was dying down, Zayn - who is engaged to Little Mix singer Perrie Edwards - quit One Direction, prompting a number of fans to lay the blame for his departure with her.
She added in an interview with MailOnline: "Where I thought I had the first run of abuse, I thought this is done now.'
"My boss told me that he'd left the band and that I should get home straight away before getting linked to it. So then there was the second piece of abuse. People saying 'It's your fault, you've made him leave and stressed him out by posting that image'.
"You try not take it to heart because it's not my fault he left the band. You try to not let the comments bother you."
Despite the threats, Lauren thinks the people behind the backlash will eventually feel "stupid" when they realise nothing untoward went on between her and Zayn.
She told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "In my caption I said, 'Partying with 1D'. It was an innocent picture. That's the crazy thing.
"People think more went on. That's going to be the funniest thing about it when they go, 'Don't we look stupid now we've blown it out of context'."
