After listening to "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" on repeat, the question still bothering everyone is how exactly the Zayn Malik and Taylor Swift collaboration came to be. We're definitely not complaining—just curious.
For the most part, Jack Antonoff—AKA the producer mastermind behind three songs on the eternally brilliant 1989, among other genius musical productions—orchestrated the collaboration. "I spoke to her on the phone, and she heard the song because Jack had played it to her. So she really liked it, and she went in the studio the next day," Zayn said on Elvis Duran and the Morning Show.
Still, just reaching out to Taylor Swift to see if she wants to be on a track? Bold move. But Zayn had some insider knowledge that helped him build up the courage to ask her.
Turns out, the collab can partly be accredited to Gigi Hadid, Tay squad member and girlfriend of Zayn. "The interesting thing was that she is actually friends with Gi, so she already reached out because Jack had just played her the song anyway, just because we'd done it together and she really liked it and she'd mentioned to me that she liked the song," Zayn said. "So I already kind of knew in the back of my head that she liked it."
Now that that's settled, we'll just go back to listening to the song on a loop.