In mourning. Louis Tomlinson opened up about grief in his first extensive interview since the deaths of his mother, Johannah Deakin, and his sister Félicité Tomlinson.
“That whole dark side I’ve gone through, it sounds stupid to say, but it gives me strength everywhere else in my life, because that’s the darkest s–t that I’m going to have to deal with,” the “Kill My Mind” singer, 27, told The Guardian on Wednesday, September 25. “So it makes everything else, not feel easier and not less important, but, in the grand scheme of things, you see things for what they are, I suppose.”
Through it all, Louis found comfort in the supportive messages he has received from his fan base.
“I’m sure every artist says this, but I do believe it. We’ve been through some dark times together and those things I’ve been through, they carry a weight, emotionally, on the fans as well. And I felt their love and support,” he said. “I remember really clearly when I lost my mum, that support was mad.”
Deakin died at the age of 43 in December 2016 after battling an aggressive form of leukemia. Félicité died from an accidental drug overdose at age 18 this past March. She had been taking anxiety medication since her mom’s death.
“I keep going back to it, but I don’t know if it’s a combination of where I grew up and my mum’s influence, but I just have this luxury of being able to see the glass half-full no matter what,” Louis told the British newspaper. “There’s no time for me to be sat feeling sorry for myself. I’ve been to rock bottom and I feel like, whatever my career’s going to throw in front of me, it’s going to be nothing as big or as emotionally heavy as that. So, weirdly, I’ve turned something that’s really dark into something that empowers me, makes me stronger.”
The former One Direction member then reiterated that he does not “want people to feel sorry for” him because “that’s not how I feel for myself.”
