The photo itself shows the former band member donning the One Direction t-shirt, which is part of the merchanise from their 'Up All Night Tour', which took place in 2012.
Despite deleting the snap from his Instagram stories, many eagle eyed fans took a screenshot of the photo, before uploading it themselves, using the hashtag "he deleted it", pushing it as an online trend.
A video was later shared by fan, of former One Direction band mate Niall Horan with the caption, “me screenshotting his story before he deleted it", while another added, “his ass thinking if he deleted it no one would see it as if we already don’t have it as wallpaper uploaded in every social platform and being printed on several objects as we speak".
Last month, another former One Direction singer Louis Tomlinson had admitted that a reunion is not quite on the cards for the time being anyway.
"Getting back together at some point is hard to imagine right now", Tomlinson said. "I'd be surprised if we lived out our lives and didn't have a moment where we had a reunion, or whatever you want to call it. I'd be up for that",
Written by Dalton MacNamee
Dalton Mac Namee is a content writer for Classichits.ie and a freelance GAA reporter from Louth, Ireland.