Lewis Capaldi has admitted he never planned on performing again after stepping away two years ago.
The 28-year-old singer returned from an extended hiatus at Glastonbury last month, two years after deciding to take time away from the spotlight following an emotional and challenging set at Worthy Farm.
He made a surprise appearance at this year’s festival and has since announced a UK tour for later this year, but there was a very real change he wasn’t going to make a comeback.
Speaking to one of his best friends for a chat to mark his new partnership with BetterHelp online therapy platform, Lewis described the 2023 show as ‘literally the worst moment’ of his life.
The Someone You Love singer said: “It was a big, big, big old gig. Second song in I was probably just like, “This has to like… I can’t keep doing this to myself and other people as well”.
‘People were coming to gigs, and I was like, ‘That’s not how you want to watch a show”. As far as I was concerned, I was like, “I’m done indefinitely.” ‘
Instead of ‘living in the moment’ the Scottish star – who topped the UK singles charts last week with comeback track Survive – was ‘catastrophising’.
Now, he has opened up on how therapy has been a ‘massive part of the reason’ he’s ‘able to be a musician again’ two years later.
Asked how he had reached a point where he felt better, the Grammy-nominated artist said he had previously been ‘lying’ to a therapist and ‘telling them what I thought they wanted to hear’.
While Lewis ‘struggles’ with therapy, and doesn’t ‘have a fun time’, he always knows he’ll ‘feel amazing after’.
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‘Sometimes it can be really difficult, but I think I do it because I realise how important is for me to continue to feel good, because I’ve felt the best I felt in a long time through therapy, I would say that has been the cornerstone of like, why I feel how good I feel now,’ he explained.
He pointed out that it’s not a ‘quick fix’, and he’s also learned to accept that being an ‘anxious person’ is part of who he is.
‘It’s about how I respond to anxiety and how I respond to a lot of stuff in my life,’ he said. ‘I have neglected to look after myself in the past, both mentally and physically, and I have made promises to myself that I haven’t kept.
‘I think for me, it’s accepting that I’m always going to have this stuff there, it’s about how I sort of respond, what steps I take to sort of remain at like base level.’
Through his new campaign with BetterHelp, Lewis is helping the organisation give away 734,000 free hours of therapy – which is a very significant number.
‘It’s 1,000 hours for every single day that I have, well, since I last played on stage,’ he revealed. ‘I feel like, if I can be a part of sharing that with other people, why not?’
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