One Direction Throw Dirt On ‘Squeaky-Clean’ Boy-Band Image

One Direction have always had a slightly dirty sense of humor about their clean-cut image. While they don’t have the hard-partying reputation of The Wanted, with an album dubbed Take Me Home, they can be naughty when they want to be.

Occasionally photographed leaving a nightclub or with a new rumored love interest, the fab five aren’t afraid to be open about who they are, even with the flashing lights of a photographer’s lens never far away.

“I don’t think we’ve ever tried to be squeaky-clean. Nobody’s perfect,” Liam Payne says in Glamour magazine’s August cover story.

“The thing is, when you’re playing a part, eventually it goes wrong,” Harry Styles added. “Eventually someone’s going to see that that’s not who you are. So it’s best to be yourself from the get-go.”

But they admit that when they’re constantly away from home, it can be hard to stay in touch with themselves. While traveling across the country for their Take Me Home Tour, they’re learning how to balance their personal and professional lives.

“Yeah, it’s something that is quite hard — people being a bit rude to [ex-girlfriend Danielle Peazer] on the Internet. And it’s a challenge having a relationship on the road,” Payne explained. (Payne and Peazer reportedly broke up back in May.) “Credit to anybody that does it, really.”

But some of the guys are doing it. Zayn Malik (who recently got a tattoo of his girlfriend, Little Mix’s Perrie Edward) and Louis Tomlinson are two members that have found a way to find time for both long term love and work.

“I think you have to keep your feet on the ground,” Tomlinson explained of his relationship philosophy. “I’m in a relationship [with college student Eleanor Calder], and it’s completely fine.”

And, Styles has always had gossip bloggers on both sides of the pond buzzing about his love life, especially when he was dating Taylor Swift in 2012 before their highly publicized break-up shortly after the New Year’s holiday.

“People who know me know what’s true and what’s not,” he shared of the constant speculation about what lady he’s spending time with in between professional obligations, which these days include finishing up work on the band’s forthcoming third album (which will feature their July 22 single ) and their upcoming August 30 movie release, “This Is Us.”