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Niall Horan has voiced his support for friend and fellow singer Lewis Capaldi days after the singer canceled his upcoming tour dates to tend to his mental and physical health.
Capaldi, who has been candid about his struggles with Tourette’s syndrome, announced earlier this week that — following his difficult performance at Glastonbury — he would take a break from touring for the remainder of the year.
Speaking to the Sun, Horan said of his friend Capaldi, “I’m really happy for Lewis that he’s able to take the time that he obviously feels he needs right now. But performing never gets easy. I don’t think you ever truly get used to singing in front of 100,000 people. If you have any sort of performance anxieties or anything like that then that stage can be a tough place.”
At Capaldi’s Glastonbury show, the Tourette’s visibly made the singer twitch mid-song, but his fanbase sang along to the lyrics until the symptoms subsided. “I really apologize. You’ve all come out, and my voice is really packing in,” Capaldi told the crowd. “We’re gonna play two more songs if that’s cool, even if I can’t hit all the notes.”
“I think they realized how much he was struggling up there. It was a proper human moment,” Horan noted of the fans’ reaction.
“He’s not just the fella who sings and makes us laugh all the time, he’s the fella who also has anxieties and Tourette syndrome and it’s coming to fruition on stage. So I’m glad people were right there behind him showing him support.”
In March, Capaldi releasedhis documentaryHow I’m Feeling Now, which gave a closer look at his mental health issues and Tourette’s. It captured how he’s been able to manage his tics throughout his career as he revealed that early on he pushed back on getting treatment, calling the tics a normal part of his life.
Capaldi previously canceled all of his gigs leading up to Glastonbury in order to “rest and recover” before the performance.
