£27million: That’s what the stars of One Direction EACH made before they split.

So, One Direction are to split and millions of teenage hearts are breaking. Yet, even as we heard the news yesterday and parents were warned to watch out for signs of their daughters self-harming, there was one important caveat: it won’t be until March next year.
For while most bands break-up with immediate effect, having been riven with bitter infighting, hatred and feuds for years, One Direction’s is rather different.

They’ll spend the next six months continuing their latest world tour, before launching a Christmas album in December then honouring all their promotional commitments throughout February.

Rock ’n’ roll it ain’t — more like their slickest marketing gimmick yet. And some might say most cynical. Yes, they may have grown sick of the relentless lifestyle but, it seems, there’s one thing they’re not yet sick of — the money.

And what a lot of money there is. Each of the five members — Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik, who left earlier this year — is believed to have earned somewhere in the region of £27 million during their five years in the band.

Of course, much has been blown on fast cars, flash watches and mansions in the Home Counties, but behind the scenes they’ve also each been spending a small fortune on something else — their families.

For despite the tattoos and the rumours of drug-taking and cheating on girlfriends, all the boys — who are from working-class families — are exceptionally close to their parents and siblings. Indeed each has bought, or tried to buy, a new house for their mum or dad.

Take 22-year-old Zayn. Not only has he bought a fabulous new four-bedroom home in Bradford for his mum Tricia, a school cook, but he also splashed out £200,000 on a new-build property in Dorset last year for the mother of his then fiancee, Perrie Edwards of girlband Little Mix.

Very generous but perhaps, as proved by his and Perrie’s split last month, not entirely wise.

Some of them — step forward the band’s biggest heart-throb Harry Styles — are even said to send a monthly allowance home to their mums. Louis has hired his mother and sister to work for him.

Both were also best men at their mothers’ weddings recently — Harry’s parents Anne and Des split when he was seven, Louis’s parents Troy and Johannah also divorced when he was young — helping foot the bill for the ceremonies.

Of course, they can afford it.