Zayn Malik has come under fire on social media after urging fans to contribute to a campaign to help garner £120,000 ($223,871.57 NZ) for his mother's cancer-stricken best friend.
According to Daily Mail, the 24-year-old reached out to his 21.8million followers to help the fundraising efforts of Trisha'sfriend Ayesha Butt, who has terminal lung cancer, and is seeking life-extending treatment in Istanbul.
The Pillow Talk hitmaker, worth an estimated £30million ($56 million NZ), was blasted for not contributing the money himself after sharing the link to the Go Fund Me page, with users claiming the star is 'filthy rich' and querying 'why don't you?'
Zayn enjoys a famously close relationship with his beloved mother, having bought his family matriarch a house in his native Bradford last year.
Once again showing support for his mum, the singer took to Twitter last week to share a link to the crowdfunding site while accompanying the link with the simple sentence: 'This is my mum's best friend. Please help in anyway possible'.
On the fundraising site, Ayesha explained that she is a 47-year-old mum-of-one and was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 2015, writing: 'That's when the words that no person ever wants to hear came, and that was "You have cancer".
'The diagnosis was incurable, inoperable, metastatic (already spread) non-small cell lung cancer. It was stage three, in my lymph nodes and also pancreas.'
She described gruelling cycles of chemotherapy and the heartbreaking moment in March when doctors informed her she had 14 small brain tumours.
Zayn Malik and his mother Trisha Malik. Photo / Getty
Continuing in her heartbreaking description, she penned: 'Without going into detail of the past 20 months, can I say I have been to hell and back more than once. I was actually knocking on heaven's door twice, luckily nobody answered.'
Ayesha explained that her only hope is chemotherapy at a clinic in Istanbul which treats patients with stage four cancer.
She went on: 'We have searched and not another place in the world can offer me anything close to this. So please help me to stay with my daughter for much longer. This I know is going to cost thousands and we already have raised £35,000 from savings etc.
'For me to immediately start on session one - my first, intense, three-week treatment plan made for me. Session two, a ten-day plan, is also covered. The next 10 sessions will hopefully be funded by well-wishers.'
The page, created on Friday, has already raised £13,447 of its £120,000 total target. After Zayn shared the page on Twitter and urged his fans to help, followers had mixed responses.
Zayn's legion of loyal followers were counteracted with fans questioning why the moneyed superstar was not footing Ayesha's bill himself. Last year, the Sunday Times Rich List reported that the pop star was worth £30 million.
One wrote: 'Aren't you like super rich?... Like I said, he could have completely paid for it. He doesn't need our help. He's filthy rich... He's worth $50 million.... look it up... But he could have completely paid for it he's rich... He could offer quite a bit on behalf of a family friend. This is odd.'
