Twitter spat between 1D's Louis and ex bandmate Zayn

One Direction's Louis Tomlinson (right) and his former band mate Zayn Malik Credit: Reuters

A Twitter argument has broken out between One Direction's Louis Tomlinson, his former band mate Zayn Malik and music producer Naughty Boy.

DJ and music producer Naughty Boy - real name Shahid Khan - posted a picture of himself and Zayn on Twitter, writing "caption this".

A tweet by Tomlinson that followed appears to have sparked a public war of words on the social media site.

It read: "Remember when you were 12 and you used to think those Mac filters for your pictures were cool haha ! Some people still do HA!"

Malik then took to Twitter, replying to Tomlinson writing: "Remember when you had a life and stopped making bitchy comments about mine?"

Some of Naughty Boy's Tweets, which he has tagged Tomlinson in, read: "And some people can't even sing.. but who's complaining when there's auto tune eh" and "Yeah how does it feel mate? You've been doing that for the last five years... I've got Emeli Sande and Sam Smith on my CV."

Shortly after Malik quit One Direction in March, Naughty Boy posted a demo of song 'I Won't Mind', featuring Malik's vocals, online only to delete it 12 hours later.

Naughty Boy said: "I wouldn't call it working (with Malik). We're good friends, and I think in this business it's hard to make good friends, so that's what I'm here for. That's why I'm there for him right now."