Members deny One Direction heading for split

British-Irish boyband One Direction is to take a break next year, two of their members said on Monday, quickly reassuring the group's passionate fans that they had no plans to split up.

The comments followed a report in The Sun newspaper citing a "1D source" that the band was to separate for at least a year, leaving the band's enormous global teenage following devastated.

"OK, so lots of rumours going round. We are not splitting up, but we will be taking a well earned break at some point next year," Niall Horan, a member of the four-piece boyband, wrote to his 23 million followers on Twitter.