Zayn Malik leaves One Direction tour, citing stress

Zayn Malik has pulled out of One Direction’s international On the Road Again tour and is headed home to Britain.

“Zayn has been signed off with stress and is flying back to the UK to recuperate,” said Simon Jones, a spokesman for the band, in a statement Thursday. “The band wish him well and will continue with their performances in Manila and Jakarta.”

Malik hinted at a possible stressed-out situation Wednesday on Twitter, when he wrote, “I’m 22 years old... I love a girl named Perrie Edwards. And there’s a lot of jealous [people] in this world I’m sorry for what it looks like x.”

He was referring to rumors he was cheating on Edwards, a singer for Little Mix who has been his fiancee since August 2013, that arose this week after pictures showed up online of him embracing and holding hands with a 19-year-old blond outside a nightclub in Phuket, Thailand. (The term “embracing,” by the way, is used loosely here.)

“Out of every one of the boys, he’s the one who struggles dealing with being in the spotlight the most,” a source told People. “He can’t cope with the level of scrutiny he gets put under.”

The band’s Asian stretch has hit a few bumps, with Malik and Louis Tomlinson each being required by the Philippines to post a $4,500 “marijuana bond” to be forfeited if either used or promoted the use of illegal drugs, AFP reported.

Moral of the story? If you’re going to smoke weed on your way to a gig in Peru, don’t videotape the party. Actually, that’s probably good advice to a boy band traveling to a gig just about anywhere in the world ...

After shows this weekend in the Philippines and next week in Jakarta, Indonesia, 1D -- the other three members are Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Liam Payne -- moves on to Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, before getting back on familiar U.K. turf in early June.

The tour then moves on for more dates in Europe before making landfall in North America in July. After plowing through dates in the U.S. and Canada, it’s back to London in September to kick off a jaunt through the United Kingdom that runs through Halloween.

Seriously, One Direction -- a creation of the British version of “The X Factor” -- has been pushing it pretty hard for years now.

The most recent big name to leave an international boy-band tour midway through was Demi Lovato, who bailed on the Jonas Brothers in South America back in 2010 and headed straight for rehab.

Looks like that has worked out well for her. Maybe Malik’s break will be a smart move as well?

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.