Zayn Malik swooped in and rescued a scared fan from being crushed by an overexcited crowd on Friday, after she tripped and fell while trying to take a snap of her idol.

The former One Direction singer was heading into his album release party in New York with girlfriend Gigi Hadid when he saw a young fan fall over and reportedly dashed into the crowd to help her back up.

The starstruck fan, who has since been identified as a girl called Cass, praised the 23-year-old singer for his "heroic" actions, posting on Twitter that "Zayn literally wrapped his arm around me and pulled me up".

She also added that he had just saved her "from fan death" after the incident.

According to Cass' tweets she had been waiting to catch a glimpse of Zayn arriving at his album launch but when the star arrived it caused everyone in the crowd to start pushing against her and she ended up tripping over a security guard's leg.

She escaped relatively unscathed from the incident.