The identity of the fan who One Direction star Zayn Malik invited up to his hotel room in a leaked phone call has been revealed – and now the woman is speaking out for the first time in an exclusive Daily Mail interview.
In 2012, an audio clip was leaked of a man with a northern-English accent inviting a group of women to come over, sending the One Direction fanbase into meltdown when they speculated the man was none other than Zayn Malik.
The man on the call said his friend ‘Harry’ – who fans speculated was bandmate Harry Styles – wanted ‘booty’ and instructed the woman to tell hotel staff she was Crystabel Riley, the band’s makeup artist, to avoid attention from fans outside.
The mystery of who ‘Crystabel Riley’ was plagued the fanbase for more than a decade, until Tricia Corona, a now 32-year-old married mother-of-two, revealed that she was the mysterious woman on the other end of the line.
Although Malik, who was just two months shy of his 19th birthday during his hotel rendezvous with Corona, was reportedly dating Little Mix‘s Perrie Edwards at the time, she told Daily Mail she was not a home-wrecker.
‘We were kids, and that was that,’ Corona told Daily Mail at her home in Zelienople, Pennsylvania.
Mom-of-two Tricia Corona, pictured this week by Daily Mail, says she is the woman on the other end of the line in Zayn Malik’s booty call that set the internet on fire 13 years ago
Malik (second right) and the rest of the band wore all green for St. Patrick’s Day when they held the album signing at a Walmart in Somerdale, New Jersey, on March 17, 2012
Corona caught Malik’s attention in her neon mini dress paired with a dark vest and boots on the day of their hook-up
‘I’m a mom-of-two now. That was a fun time in my life. But this is my life now, and…I’m at a point where I don’t care, I’ll tell you the story. It’s whatever. It happened.’
Corona said she first locked eyes with Malik when she took her super fan cousin to meet One Direction during an album signing at a Walmart in suburban Philadelphia on March 17, 2012.
After four hours of standing in line with other fans, she finally got to meet the now-defunct band and boldly gave Malik her phone number on a piece of paper she had stuffed in her bra.
‘I don’t know where the confidence came from to do what I did. It’s almost like I blacked out,’ said Corona, a mortgage processor and make-up artist.
‘We were all just giddy, it’s exciting. When we were standing in line, and even when we went up and talked to them, we never would have expected that the night would have ended the way it did.’
She said on walking up to the table, she first spoke to the band’s Liam Payne – who tragically died last year in Argentina – then Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson, before seeing Malik.
The make-up artist and mother of two gave Malik her phone number at the event, which she had written on a piece of paper tucked into her bra
The makeup artist said Zayn complimented her ‘jubblies’, referring to her breasts, before she gave him her number and suggested they hang out later, to which he allegedly replied, ‘Okay’
She recalled: ‘He was signing something, and we just went up to him, and he said, “Hello”, and he kind of muttered, “I like your jubblies”.
‘I didn’t know what that meant. And I looked at my cousin. She was like, “I think he means he likes your boobs”.
‘And then I just pulled my number out of my bra, and I was like, “If you want to hang out later, just call me”. And I slid it across the table, and he was like, “Okay”.
‘And I saw him pass it off to Harry Styles, and he said: “Keep them”. I think by the time I got to Harry, I honestly blacked out.
‘I was always a Zayn girl, but Harry is just a sweet little baby.’
Malik’s rep did not return a request for comment.We also reached out to Styles’s rep.
Corona shared photos with the Daily Mail that she said were taken the day of the signing. In one, she is wearing a neon mini dress, a dark-colored vest and boots.
Other snaps show the 1D stars sitting at a table in green T-shirts – a nod to St Patrick’s Day – with silly string spattered on a picture of their faces behind them.
She also shared screenshots of what she said were call logs and messages from Malik.
Corona first made her claim on TikTok, where she said she, her cousin and two friends they had met at the signing in Somerdale, New Jersey, were driving back home to the Pittsburgh area when they got a call from a British phone number.
‘I answer and you can hear all of them yelling and giggling and talking,’ she said. ‘I say “hello” and they don’t say anything and hang up.’
After Corona, who was 18 at the time, gave the superstar her phone number, she said she saw him pass it to bandmate Harry Styles and tell him to ‘keep them’
Other photos taken by Corona show the One Direction stars sitting at a table with silly string sprayed over a picture of their faces behind them
Corona shared screenshots she said were call logs from One Direction star Malik after the signing. She claimed the bandmates initially kept prank calling her, with her hearing them yelling, giggling and talking before hanging up
She claimed that this prank kept on occurring an ‘absurd amount of times’, until she got a phone call from Malik at midnight asking her to join him at his hotel in Philadelphia.
Corona said she agreed, and she and her friends began the one-and-a-half-hour drive back.
‘He’s calling me every two minutes, “Where are you? How far away are you? You have to be quicker – you have to get here fast because we do have to leave”,’ she claimed.
‘We finally get to Philly and he calls and he’s like “We left, we had to go, I told you. We’re going to New York City. Why don’t you come meet us there?”‘
She claims Malik called her and invited her to his luxury New York hotel room, where she says they chatted about his newfound fame and enjoyed a room service meal of chicken and fries before what she euphemistically calls an ‘adult rendezvous’.
Corona also claimed that Malik’s bandmate, Styles, was ‘interested’ in one of her friends and invited her to his hotel room, opposite Malik’s, the same night – but declined to divulge the friend’s identity or further details about the encounter. The cousin and the other friend stayed in the car.
She said she and her friends went to see the popstars at The London, a high-end hotel in midtown Manhattan and told how she was blown away by the opulent surroundings.
She claims Malik called her and invited her to his luxury New York hotel room, where they talked about his newfound fame and shared a room service meal of chicken and fries before their ‘adult rendezvous’
Corona claimed that Malik’s bandmate Harry Styles showed interest in her female friend and invited her to his hotel room across from Malik’s
She said she and her friend went to see the pop stars at The London, a high-end hotel in midtown Manhattan and described being blown away by the opulent surroundings
In the end, she says she did not have to use the elaborate ‘Crystabel Riley’ ruse, telling the Daily Mail she and her pal ‘just walked right in’ and took the elevator up to the floor the band were staying on.
‘It was the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in,’ Corona said. ‘It was super fancy.
‘I remember going up in the elevator, and it stopped on a floor, and the doors opened, and Liam and Louis were standing there. And, of course, like the little girls we were, we were like, “What the heck?”
‘They were on a different floor from Zayn and Harry. And then we went up to their floor, they were across the hall from each other.’
Corona said Malik answered the door and she went in while her friend went into Styles’s room opposite.
Once inside, she said she and Malik ‘chatted, had fun and got some food’ from room service, which she recalls as chicken fingers and French fries.
‘We had a nice time. He was very respectful, very kind. We chatted, we had fun, got some food.
‘The groupie life is like Fight Club,’ Corona added. ‘Don’t talk about it. But, I’m not in it anymore, so I guess it doesn’t matter.’
She confirmed the pair slept together, adding: ‘We had an adult rendezvous. We were both adults. We were legal, consenting adults, and that’s what I’ll say.
‘And he was nothing but kind and respectful.’
Addressing one internet ‘theory’ that there were other people involved, she insisted: ‘There was not another person. It was me and Zayn.’
She did not want to reveal anything about her female friend, but said she was ‘not with me’.
When pressed for more information, she confirmed that she and Malik slept together, emphasizing that both were consenting adults. She also described him as kind and respectful throughout their encounter
The mom of two hit back on claims that Malik cheated on his then-girlfriend, Edwards, stating she believed he was single at the time and that she would never have been intimate with him if she had known he was in a relationship
She said she and Malik chatted and he came off as ‘just a normal kid’, adding: ‘He was excited about all the things that were happening for him, which is crazy, because when that all happened, they weren’t super big.
‘He was basically fangirling too. He was telling me about Simon Cowell. They weren’t even allowed to have his number, because they were just kids.
‘He was freaking out because [the singer] Jay Sean was DMing [direct messaging] him. Now I’m pretty sure Jay Sean would be freaking out if Zayn was DMing him.
‘He was very normal and you could tell he was kind of searching for that normalcy.’
Corona claims she spent about four hours with Malik before leaving the hotel with her friend and returning home to their ‘normal lives’ in a suburb just outside Pittsburgh.
She said while she didn’t make it back in time for her then-job as a waitress, she had a ‘fun story’ to tell friends – but did not anticipate the internet frenzy that blew up with her apparent phone call with the band, which was leaked online months later.
Corona posted a series of TikToks on her rendezvous with Malik earlier this month, but told Daily Mail that she has been met with some vitriol from hardcore 1D fans who have sent her death threats
The makeup artist emphasized that it was a ‘fun time in her life’ and she wanted to set the record straight that she was the mysterious ‘Crystabel Riley’ on the audio that was leaked in 2012
‘I told my friends when I came home, and I never thought it would go anywhere else. And then the phone call leaked.
‘Honestly, I hid in my closet. It was embarrassing, it was scary, mainly because I didn’t know who leaked it. I still don’t.
‘My mom heard it on the radio… and obviously she’s going to know my voice and so she knew that I was there.
‘She called me and she was like, “Why did I just hear your voice on Ryan Seacrest?”
‘I had people messaging me: “Is this what you were talking about?” And it was crazy.
‘I had a couple of people at work be like, “I know that’s your voice”, so at the time, it was not funny. I did not like it.
Malik had a four-year relationship with Edwards, but faced numerous rumors of infidelity
‘Also at the time, it was a huge deal for Zayn. He was getting terrible backlash for that, and I felt really terrible because that wasn’t the case, there was no cheating involved.
‘If I had come out when I was 18 or 19 and said, “Oh yeah, that’s me on the phone call”, I would never have survived all the hate because I hadn’t had any life experiences at that point. I was just a kid.’
Corona stressed how her liaison with Malik was a ‘small part’ of her life back then, and now that she is in her 30s, she felt ready to go public with her story, caring less about what others think.
She said she, her family and friends laugh about it now, adding: ‘I just look back and I’m like “that’s wild”.
‘The life I live now is far different than the life that I once lived, and that’s okay, and I’m not reliving my past or anything. I’m just saying that was a fun time in my life.’
But she said her lighthearted attitude to her story hasn’t stopped some internet trolls sending death threats and urging her pharmacist husband, Andrew, 40, to take their two young children and leave her.
‘People saying that my husband should leave me and that my kids should hate me, that doesn’t faze me, because this was a minuscule part of my life.’
For his part, Andrew said: ‘Usually, like Tricia said, we laugh because they don’t know what they’re talking about.
‘Tricia had a story to tell. And that’s nothing that would upset me, what she did 12 years ago when we were just friends.’
During his four-year romance with Edwards, Malik was plagued by several rumors of infidelity.
In 2013, Australian waitress Courtney Webb claimed she enjoyed a night of passion with the singer after he claimed he was single.
After sharing pictures of Zayn in bed, she told The Sun: ‘He’s an absolute s**t. How dare he – not only to me but to Perrie?’
Malik dated supermodel Gigi Hadid, but the on-again, off-again couple broke up permanently in late 2021 following a dispute with Gigi’s mother, Yolanda
She then added that she believed Zayn had strayed more than once, saying: ‘I definitely don’t think it’s the first time he’s done this.’
Two years later, Swedish model Martina Olsson claimed that Malik cheated on Edwards with her while One Direction toured in Thailand, telling her, ‘I want you now’.
The club promoter insisted that she bedded the former 1D star twice after partying together at the same nightclub where he was pictured cuddling Essex girl Lauren Richardson.
After a picture of Malik hugging Lauren went viral, he returned to his home with Edwards in the UK and tweeted: ‘I’m 22 years old… I love a girl named Perrie Edwards. And there’s a lot of jealous f***s in this world, I’m sorry for what it looks like.’
He then announced he was leaving One Direction’s On the Road Again World Tour due to stress and days later in March 2015 he announced he was quitting the band and five months later he split from Edwards.
Malik went on to date supermodel Gigi Hadid, but the on/off couple split for good in late 2021 after he was involved in a row with Gigi’s mother, Yolanda, where the singer was charged with four counts of harassment for allegedly pushing Yolanda into a dresser. He pleaded no contest to the charges.
Malik and Hadid now amicably co-parent their four-year-old daughter Khai.
