One Direction fans go wrong in search for Niall
There are two Niall Horans on Twitter. One is a singer in the hottest boy band on the planet and the other works in an insurance company in Dublin — and he’s gay.
Niall Horan (@niallhoran), from Drongán, Co Tipperary, is a 31-year-old gay man and he warns girls on his Twitter page that he is not the man they are looking for.
However, despite his protestations, the less well-known Horan has not put off the female fans, which is probably why he has 5,000-plus followers.
Niall Horan (@NiallOfficial), the 18-year-old pop idol from Mullingar, Co Westmeath, has about 5m fans but cannot use his full name as the other Niall got there first.
The older Niall has been on Twitter since the start of 2009. His followers jumped from about 100 to 500 immediately after the boyband’s record company tagged his username in one of their posts. He now has more than 5,200.
“My Twitter followers rocketed after One Direction became famous in America this year,” said Niall, who does try to point fans in the right direction by replying to them from time to time.
However, Niall has no plans to change his username. “I had the name — my real one — on Twitter before Niall, the singer, so I am not going to change it because he is famous.”
He also finds it strange that despite the disclaimer and the fact he looks nothing like the other Niall, fans still follow him: “I am 5ft 11in with brown hair and am not related to him at all but they continue to follow me despite being told over and over again that I am not in One Direction.
“I have even directed them to the other Niall Horan and sometimes fans get abusive when I do.”
He found that some fans had called him on his mobile phone after finding the number on his Gmail account.
“Sometimes the girls tell me they love me and stuff and I go back to them and burst their bubble,” he said.
Niall got a bit annoyed with a message left by one irate fan, so he photo-graphed it and put it up on his Twitter page. “It was really just to show how crazy some of the fans had become,” he said.
And, yes, Niall follows his famous namesake on Twitter — just for the fun of it.
