It definitely came as no surprise to long-time fans of One Direction and long-time listeners of my radio show that Niall Horan is a “massive” fan of President Barack Obama. Horan revealed his admiration for the First Family during a chat on my show back in 2012; the aforementioned quote attributed to the singer became a popular Tumblr meme (only second to the GIF-able moment when Louis Tomlinson decided to crash our interview).
“I’m a big fan of their dad,” Horan told me as we talked about Malia and Sasha Obama, the President’s daughters, who at the time had recently just hung out with One Direction at a concert in Fairfax, Va. The fellas traveled north to perform a show on Memorial Day Weekend that was originally scheduled for Philadelphia’s Tower Theater. Due to the band’s burgeoning popularity at the time, the concert was moved to the BB&T (then Susquehanna Bank) Pavilion in Camden, N.J.
Yours truly missed the memo and drove down the turnpike to Tower. As soon as I saw not a single person standing outside, I figured that either I missed the memo or I misread the date; thankfully it was the former. My air conditioning unit was maxed out as I continued driving south, eventually arriving at the correct venue and receiving an escort in to the venue by Columbia Records. The five guys of 1D split off to do a number of radio interviews at once; Niall was the lucky one who drew me I suppose.
“They’re just regular kids,” Horan continued about Malia and Sasha. “They got to have a childhood and then they became ‘the President’s daughters.’”
Fans of Horan retweeted a clip of the interview that I had posted after the Irishman posted a message to Twitter about the Obama family last Wednesday.
“Don’t get me started but I’m going to miss the obamas (sic),” he wrote online. “The nicest family on earth.”
Horan and his bandmates first connected with Malia and Sasha at the Kids Choice Awards in 2012. The First Family said that if One Direction couldn’t make it to the White House, then the kids could go to one of their shows. So with Secret Service in tow, the daughters traveled out to the Patriot Center where they hung out with the guys backstage.
“We just had a conversation about everything,” Horan said. “It went from food to roller coasters to life to them having loads of security all the time.”
Which at least on some level, One Direction could relate to, although even Horan was taken aback by the Secret Service detail – which at the time struck me as one of the more surprising moments of our interview. And perhaps for Horan, it was an omen to the popularity and subsequent security measures to come.
