In one of his most candid interviews to date, Louis Tomlinson has shared intimate details about his experience with grief in losing not just One Direction bandmate Liam Payne but also his sister Félicité and mum, Johanna.
In his conversation with The Diary Of A CEO host Steven Bartlett, Tomlinson recounted the moment he learnt of Liam’s passing as well as his sister before drawing parallels between the two.
The former One Direction member’s younger sister Félicité passed away suddenly in March, 2019. Just 18 years of age, she was found collapsed at her flat in Earl’s Court, west London, with a coroner later ruling her cause of death was a cocktail of drugs she described as “a perfect storm”.
Recalling the moment he found out, Tomlinson said: “The doorbell rang at like one in the morning or something,” Louis recalled. “And I had this feeling come over me straight away… when someone rings your doorbell about that time, it’s rarely good news. I saw the police car and the policeman, and then they told me that she passed away.”
What followed was the kind of numbness that can only be induced by grief and shock.
“Not only was I in denial at that moment, I just refused to even compute it. It was just like, ‘Okay, cool.’ And then I remember shutting the door. And then I told the people I’m in the house with. And obviously then they start crying and your brain starts catching up with you.”
For Tomlinson, that night was a breaking point.
“To lose me sister in the manner that we did, even though I knew it wasn’t fair on myself, I felt utterly guilty. I felt powerless and I felt like I’d let me sister and like I’d let my mum down.”
That guilt, he explained, stemmed partly from his mother’s final words to him. “My mom said to me, the last couple of weeks of her life, ‘You better promise me you look after your sisters. But specifically Félicité, she’s fragile.’ I felt like I’d failed at the time. That’s the truth. I know now that I didn’t, but it doesn’t change the feeling.”
As the conversation around grief shifted to the passing of Liam Payne, Tomlinson revealed he “had the same feeling that I had with Félicité.”
He went on: “I think anyone has this when they’re around someone who’s struggling — my 150% wasn’t nearly enough.”
“And that’s when it’s my own arrogance thinking that I could have helped really, because it was so much deeper than what I could have done for him.
“He was definitely struggling at that time in his life.”
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