Niall Horan isn’t used to having female fans following him around the place. In fact, he’s pretty far removed from the lifestyle of the rich and the famous – he actually works in an insurance company.
Confused yet? Let us clear this up: we’re not talking about Niall Horan of One Direction fame. Oh no. We’re talking about Niall Horan, the unfortunate man whose Twitter handle is resulting in a major case of mistaken identity.
The Irish Examiner reports that Niall Horan from county Tipperary, is a 31 year old man who has had to put a warning in his Twitter bio that he is not a member of One Direction.
However, despite Niall warning girls that he is not the man they’re looking for, he has managed to amass over 5,000 followers on the social networking website.
The famous Niall Horan, who is originally from Mullingar in Westmeath, has around 5 million fans, but he can’t use his own name mainly because Tipperary Niall got there first.
Tipperary Niall has been using Twitter since 2009 and he says that his number of followers jumped from 100 to 500 after One Direction’s record company accidentally used his Twitter username in one of their posts.
“My Twitter followers rocketed after One Direction became famous in America this year,” said Niall.
“I had the name – my real on – one Twitter before Niall, the singer, so I am not going to change it because he is famous,” Niall added.
Niall admitted that he finds it strange that One Direction fans are so interested in him – especially as he doesn’t look anything like the boy band member.
“I am 5ft 11in with brown hair and am not related to him at all but they continue to follow me despite being told over and over again that I am not in One Direction. I have even directed them to the other Niall Horan and sometimes fans get abusive when I do,” said Niall.
But Niall isn’t the only person to be mistaken for a celeb on Twitter. The mysterious Jeffery Edwards joined Twitter in 2007 with the username @jedward. He has only made one tweet, but he has over 900 followers.
We wonder if he gets random e-mails from Jedward fans proclaiming their love?
