Zayn Malik is proudly on daddy duty, which includes praising daughter Khai’s latest milestones.
“Baba farmer, courtesy of Khai. Great photography 😎,” the former One Direction signer, 30, captioned a Saturday, July 1, Instagram Story photo of himself.
In the snapshot, Malik handled a hose to power wash hay at his family’s farm. The British crooner looked casual in a pair of gray basketball shorts and a white sweatshirt. Khai, 2, stands behind the camera to take the photo of her dad, whom she calls “Baba.”
Malik first became a parent in September 2020 when then-girlfriend Gigi Hadid — whom he dated on and off between 2015 and 2021 — gave birth to their daughter.
Zayn Malik
Courtesy of Zayn Malik/Instagram“When you see someone doing that, you look at them a bit differently. I probably looked crazy, actually. I was an animal woman,” Hadid, 28, quipped to Vogue in February 2021 of Khai’s arrival, revealing she gave birth at home alongside Malik, mother Yolanda Hadid and sisters Bella Hadid. “It didn’t even click that she was out. I was so exhausted, and I looked up and he’s holding her. It was so cute.”
Gigi continued at the time: “I know my mom and Zayn and Bella were proud of me, but at certain points, I saw each of them in terror. Afterward, Z and I looked at each other and were like, ‘We can have some time before we do that again.’ She was so bright right away. That’s what I wanted for her, a peaceful bringing to the world.”
While Malik and the Guest in Residence founder called it quits for good in October 2021, they continued to amicably raise Khai.
“You have a long life alongside this person,” Gigi told the Sunday Times in March of co-parenting, noting they keep the “importance of the child’s happiness at the forefront” and that she schedules any work commitments for when Khai is with Malik. She added: “That she can be with both parents makes me very happy.”
Malik, for his part, has previously gushed over watching Gigi as a mother. “Obviously, she’s a really big help with everything, and she’s doing well,” he said during an iHeartRadio interview on “Valentine in the Morning” in March 2021. “It’s been really easy for me and Gigi to be kind of just ease into it . [Khai] kind of made it easy for us, she sleeps really well, she loves her milk. It’s just feeding and changing diapers at the moment.”
Malik also found inspiration in parenthood for his EP YellowTape. In several of the tracks, he crooned about being a present father to Khai.
“Me, I’m feeling grown since I had my daughter/ Now I had to change my goals,” Malik raps on “Believe Me,” which dropped in September 2021. “And became a father / I learned this is on my own / This is the life I chose.”