Naughty Boy has addressed his war of words with One Direction star Louis Tomlinson following pal Zayn Malik’s exit from the boyband.

The producer - who recently released Zayn demo 'I Won’t Mind' - found himself on the receiving end of Louis’ acid tongue after retweeting a video that appeared to diss 1D.

This obviously annoyed Tomlinson, with the pair exchanging a series of heated tweets, with Naughty Boy now telling Heat magazine: “There seems to be some needless provoking going on.

“[Louis] was deliberately adding to the provoking. I don’t think that’s fair. Especially on Zayn, that’s not fair.”

He continued: “Right now, there needs to be calm. He could have said that to me privately. Doing it openly is another act of provocation that’s not needed.”

Naughty Boy went on to state that Malik has been under a lot of pressure lately and defended the 22-year old for hitting the studio after leaving the band and claiming he wants to be “normal”.

[related]The 'La La La' hitmaker said: “I’ve been his friend. He needs one. Just because we were seen at my studio – you [don’t] necessarily just make music.

“People seem to forget that he’s under so much stress. Which is why he left the tour. There’s a lot going on. People get caught up – what he has done is to be normal.

Naughty Boy concluded: “Sometimes being normal is to try and sort things out with your fiancée or hang around with a friend. That is normal.”

His comments come following reports that Simon Cowell and record label bosses have ‘banned’ Zayn from following fiancée Perrie Edwards on Little Mix’s world tour.