Niall Horan cringes at moments from his early career

Niall Horan "cringes" at moments from his early career.

The 29-year-old pop star shot to fame alongside Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik as part of billion-dollar boyband One Direction when they were put together on the UK version of The X Factor in 2010 and now that he is hunting for new talent himself as a coach on US reality competition The Voice, has admitted that some of those moments were "awkward" but they have all ended up online.

Asked if he cringes at those early days, he told InStyle, he said: "Oh, yeah. Most of my career! No, there were definitely clips that I watched back and thought, "What was I talking about? Why did I do that? Why did I sing that?"

"All the things I said, like you just get, it's not overconfidence, it's just like an awkwardness, and you've ended up just looking like an idiot - and it's all on YouTube."

The Heaven hitmaker is on the judging panel of the latest season of The Voice alongside Kelly Clarkson — who was the first-ever winner of American Idol in 2002 — Chance the Rapper and Blake Shelton and went on to add that he found it "difficult" to pitch himself to become a contestant's personal mentor but explained that otherwise being on the show has been the "most fun experience" both on and off set.

He said: "Pitching yourself to pick up an artist for your team — found that difficult. Apart from that, it's just been the most fun experience. Picking songs for the artists, having chats with them, and becoming close with those guys. And then, it's all about the banter between myself and the rest of the coaches.

"We just instantly got on really well on and off-camera. Around the dressing room corridor and just the kind of stuff that goes on behind the scenes is just a really good laugh and I didn't have to worry about that in the end."

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