LONDON: Zayn Malik probably wasn’t expecting the barrage of abuse he received from followers after he pledged his support for the #FreePalestine social media campaign, The Independent reported.

The One Direction star was bombarded with death threats and messages of complaint after he “did a Rihanna” and tweeted the hashtag to his 13 million followers.

And to start with, Malik might have assumed his protest post was a popular decision: The tweet garnered over 130,000 retweets and 138,000 favorites in a matter of moments.

The emotionally charged conflict has seen over 1,000 Palestinians perish in Gaza.

Of course, Malik isn’t the first famous face to tweet about the conflict. Rihanna forced a similar reaction when she posted #FreePalestine via her official account, only to delete it minutes later.