One Direction's Louis Tomlinson wants to buy a pet monkey.

The heartthrob singer is keen to follow in the footsteps of his hero Michael Jackson by adopting a chimpanzee and enjoy friendship like the one the late singer had with his monkey Bubbles.

He told The Sun newspaper: "I'd like to adopt a chimpanzee and build an eternal friendship. That would be amazing.

"I am a big Michael Jackson fan. He was a real inspiration and had so many great songs."

While Louis wants a monkey, his bandmate Liam Payne wants to travel to the moon when the band get some time off from their hectic schedule.

He said: "I would like to go into space in a big rocket."

However, the British group - also made up of Niall Horan, Harry Styles and Zayn Malik - are concentrating on the near future and can't wait to get to Australia as it means they can drink alcohol after spending time in America, where the drinking age is 21.

Liam said: "We want to drink pints because the legal drinking age over there is 18.

"We've been in America for ages, so we'll do that."